1 panel=3 wall hangings-picture heavy

I stretched one panel into three wall hangings. 

1. Here is a scarecrow and apple cider sign that I framed with checkerboard and pinwheels. Also added some green sashing around them and finished off with a gold border. 

 Did you notice the real acorns laying beside it?  They keep falling like crazy on my deck, plink plink plink!

 Some cute diamonds in the gold border and Xing in the checkerboard with stippling in the apple cider sign.

 Isn't this just the cutest scarecrow you have ever seen?  An echo swirl so it looks like the wind blowing. 

A little continuous curve in the pinwheel with SID around all the blocks.

2.  Three little fall pictures with checkerboard and striped borders with a bigger green border all around.

A freehand allover loops and leaves make for quick but fun quilting.

3.  The last two pictures on this panel-The Harvest and the full scarecrow make up this third wall hanging.  Simple checkerboard and pinwheels set this little guy off nicely.  My version of McTavishing in the scarecrow panel itself.  

And would you look at that I forgot to quilt this little gold pinwheel-I'll get to that tomorrow! Hate when that happens:(

 I hope that I have given you some food for thought to get those panels out that are languishing in your closet, drawer or shelf and have some fun!!!


Linking with MCM,  Monday Making and Linky Tuesday

Let it Snow-panel

This is the original panel...

And this is what I did to it.  I cut off the little pictures, added green sashing to the left side of the big panel. Little green sashings were added in between the little ones next and added to the left side of the big panel. There is a tinge of gray in the panel so I chose red and grey for the flying geese top and bottom borders surrounded by a green border.   I want to encourage you all to get a panel and try some different things with it.  It really is so fun to come up with a new look!

Quilting is always a fun part for me.  Here is how I chose to quilt this one.

I tend to do a lot of stitch in the ditch, I think it makes the piece lie so much flatter. So I SID before doing the interior quilting in that area.  

Linking with Whoop Whoop, Finished or not Friday and Finish it Up Friday.

Back to School with Island Batik

It's back to school time and it's blog hop time with Island Batik.  When growing up and getting ready to go back to school my favorite thing was to get a new box of Crayons, I loved all those colors.

 My Grandson loves markers...here he is all ready for First grade!  I purposely blurred the picture for his safety.

My favorite colors today would be these aqua, teal and purple crayons.
















All of us Ambassadors have been really busy preparing projects to show you using the new fabrics that were released at Spring Market. They should be in stores as we speak...ask for them!

The bundle I was given for this blog hop is called Olivera and is it ever lucious.  When it arrived I could hardly contain my desire to make something with it.  You see it is just my colors when it comes to a clothing item.

You might be looking for my project, well here it is.  I decided to make myself a Town and Country Jacket.  

I cut 2.5" x WOF for my stips.  It is a QAYG project, however I chose not to use batting, that way I can also use it as a shirt if I wish.   I have done a few of these jackets before so I knew exactly what size to make.  

I love how it came out!  I know that I will wear it often.  Some day I am going to make a matching purse, but I ran out of time for now.

I think the hubster was having fun taking pictures:)

Be sure to stop at the Island Batik blog and enter to win some wonderful fabrics!!!

Also you will want to check out all the other Ambassadors blog post for their day on the hop.  You can see the whole schedule HERE.

Linking with Linky Tuesday, Midweek Makers, Let's Bee Social and Can I get a Whoop Whoop.

Diagonal stripes

The project I started a couple weeks ago is now completely done and I love how it turned out!  The snowman is the only part that was a pre-printed panel (his counterparts will be done later).  I added on the one inch aqua border around him.  The pinwheels were some leftover half square triangles from the flip and sew corners of another project.  I just happened to have more of the red and white fabric to carry on with the checkerboard and stripe border.  

It took a bit of putzing with the diagonal strips to get them just right, but I think the effort was worth it.  So I strip pieced a WOF x 2" of the black, white and aqua to make the stripe. They were then cut on the 45 degree to get the diagonal. I measured and added the red and mitered the corners.  I don't really like mitering, but this one just called for it to be done.

 

 The quilting was fun too, diagonal strips, crosshatching, and straight lines.

And some fun continous curve swirly designs in the pinwheels.

  

Fun all over swirls to represent the wind whirling around with the snowflakes.

I don't usually think aqua for Christmas but he had it in his scarf so I went with it and I really think it is fresh and fun looking.  My neighbor saw it and really liked it, she might end up buying it she said.  I am totally OK with that!!

Linking up with Main Crush Monday, Monday Making

Be sure to stop back on Wednesday to see my Island Batik September project for our Back to School blog hop!

Fun and inspirational days

I survived Quilt Expo in Madison Wisconsin and I am back home and ready to get to work!!  Last Wednesday I drove over to my friend's house an hour north of Madison, stayed at her house overnight,  and then we went down to the show on Thursday morning.  Within an hour the show was really getting packed with people!  It was a fantastic show, so much to look at and get inspired by.

We chose to stay in Madison that night and go to the show 2 days.  I took 2 lectures on scrap quilting and one on modern quilts.  The modern quilt one was by Weeks Ringle, only when we got to the lecture her DH(Bill Kerr) was there.  Weeks had injured her shoulder the night before and couldn't be there. Bill mentioned he was the one that put the power point together, so we knew we would be in good hands and we were.  It was a very fun lecture.

Here we are all tuckered out after the two days.  Don't let my empty hands fool you-my goodies are in my SUV already!

I found a really good deal on Batiks at one of the booths(after I had already bought several from another vendor)  20 FQ's for $30.  And they were very nice quilt shop quality.  The first booth I hit was Bolines, found the rainbow bundle and a few 1/2 yard pieces there for more pumpkin wall hangings. Picked up the pineapple trim ruler from another vendor, a few pieces at Nancy's Notions booth.

I told my DH that I should leave home more often, I made another Etsy sale while I was gone!  And I had another this morning.  For a long time I have wanted for this to happen, so I am really stoked!  I better go get that ready to ship and put my goodies away so I can start planning out my week.  Out of country company arriving on Thursday for the weekend too.  

Linking with Molli Sparkles for Sunday Stash

Fall is in the air

I feel it-fall is in the air.  Am I ready for it, NO.  I love fall, but, I want more summer first!  Sunday felt more like summer, with 81 deg. and sunshine we pulled the boat out of the garage and spent a few hours on the lake-ahhhh relaxing!   Saturday was a bike ride which felt more like fall with leaves falling on the trail.  My heart goes out to those in Texas and to those effected with all the fires in the NW.  So on that note I am pretty darn happy with our weather.

In between a few activities this weekend, I finished binding on these toppers.  I started out piecing 2 of them but then I discovered if I did one more orange and brown strip set I could get 3 toppers and very little waste.  Since I didn't have enough of the light I chose another neutral that worked well.

Freehand feather design in the light color areas.

                     

Ruler work in the orange areas.

You may think these are hard to piece, but they are not.  You make strip sets and then use the Squedge 30 ruler to cut the shapes and sew back together.  You can find the ruler on Diana Phillips site.

This won't be as productive a week as last as I am heading to Quilt Expo in Madison, Wisconsin for a few days.  I'll be visiting a good friend over that way also.  I'll be thinking of Nancy Zieman while at the show, such a sad story, if you haven't heard you can read it here.

Also the Island Batik Back to School blog hop has started, you can follow along the hop- the Island Batik blog has the list of all of us bloggers participating.  It's gonna be so fun, you don't want to miss out on a single hop-and there are prizes!!!  HERE is the whole listing.

Linking with Freemotion by the River

A busy week

Sometimes I even amaze myself with the amount of stuff I can get done in a week!  This was one of those weeks-very productive.

Yesterday I managed to cut and piece these three wall hangings. The snowmen were all on one pre-printed panel.  I added everything else.  I had done some similar ones a couple years ago and these were left so they got pretty much the same treatment as far as pinwheels and borders. And the pinwheels, I am happy to say, are leftover flip and sew corners from past projects.  Love it when I can use what I have and still make something nice.

Wednesday a wonderful friend volunteered to come help me get a start on snowmen for the craft shows.  I cut while she sewed, we ended up with parts for 58 snowmen in 5 different styles.  I will finish them up little by little in time for a late October delivery to a craft show. 

But wait that's not all.  I also finished sewing buttons on more fleece sweaters and labeled them along with regular sweaters. A couple of them may look like repeats. however, they are just different sizes in the same colors/prints.  When I buy yardage of the fleece I get several from the same print.

                                      

It would appear I am on a navy kick wouldn't it.  But that is the color that sells the best.  I think it is because the designs show up so nicely on them. Once again these range from a 9 month to a 4 year. My boy supply was pretty low so this helped beef that up a bit.  I have now added 14 knitted items to my craft show box-ahhh that feels good!  I only have two more fleece to sew up and then I have to figure out how to fix some dropped stitches on another navy sweater, it's the edge stitches which make it a harder task.

Last night I packaged up another table runner for an Etsy sale, and today I will work on 2 more panels.

What about your week, did you have a productive one?  Hope you all have a wonderful Labor Day Weekend. 

Linking with Can I get a Whoop Whoop and Finished or Not  

Progress on coral and grey and more

A few weeks ago, while we were camping, I started this coral and grey quilt.  Last weekend I had a couple of spare hours while waiting for the hubster to get home.  So I was able to finish the last couple blocks and sew them into rows, the result is...the finished top.

I also finished up a few more of my machine knit fleece sweaters, 9mo, 2yr, and a 6yr.  

Linking at Freemotion by the River and Let's Bee Social

Knitting by Machine

In the past, I had some of you interested in seeing more of my machine knit sweaters.  This week the temps have been cooler, therefore, putting me in a knitting mood.  My craft show boxes were screaming at me to get some more kid sweaters made, so that is what I concentrated on.

Some people have never seen a knitting machine-have you?

When we are knitting, we never see the right side of the garment until we take it off the machine.  Here is a red sweater in progress, the green and gray yarns make up the tractor, dirt and cloud puff from the tractor.  This is the front of the sweater up to the armhole area. I put in markers where the sleeve will begin, and then knit to the neck and begin shaping.  I have to hand manipulate stitches to form the neckline.

Once the back and front of the sweater are knit I put one shoulder seam together(using the machine).  Then knit the ribbing for the neckline and attach it and put the other shoulder seam together.  The sleeves are knit by first picking up the required number of stitches along the sleeve area of the sweater, putting them on the machine and I am ready to begin the sleeve shaping. 

Here is a sweater that is all knitted. After I use a bit of steam to set the stitches, it is time to hand sew the seams. That is usually my evening work while watching TV.

Completed sweaters.

The other thing I like to do is make the front and back of the sweater from fleece and knit the sleeves and bands.  Here the parts are all steamed and ready to be sewn onto the fleece using the DSM.

All done!

I'll be joining my favorite Friday linky parties, (Sarah and Myra)  Won't you join in too, we love seeing your work.

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