Crushing on Fall

Here is the first of the fall panels that I have been working on.  This one is completely done and I am pretty happy with how it turned out.  If you have followed me for a while you know I love to take a panel and add somewhat of a fancy border to them.   Here is what this one looked like after I cut off the scroll line design that was at the top and bottom of the panel.  This one didn't need much straightening up either.  Sometimes panels can be really wonky.  The ones that are easy to straighten are ones with some background so you have area to work with to cut it straight and not loose the design.

Here I have added a 1.5" inner border and a skinnier orange border before I started adding my orange and cream flying geese border.  The black inner border added just the right number of inches to make the geese border come out just right.

The geese have flown into the right formation!

Next came a strip set of cream, orange and another cream for the outer borders.  The corner stones in checked orange and black pull it all together.  The black binding completes this wall hanging at about 38 x 32.

And of course it had to have some fun custom quilting!  I like to keep the interior panel piece simple with hook swirl freehand quilting.   

The borders got the fun stuff quilted on them.  My favorite ones to do are the U turns in the orange geese and a loop in the cream geese.  Another favorite is the ribbon candy that encompassed the orange and cream strip borders that is centered in between some straight line quilting. 

 I will definitely use this border treatment again on another panel.  In fact it might be used on the identical panel that I found in my stash.  I either forgot I had bought one before heading to Paducah or I just really like it that much I bought another, LOL  Well the other one has a black background so it will look a bit different;)

I did get some sewing done this weekend-on other upcoming projects.   I hope you managed to get some in also.   It was so humid here it was no fun to go out and do anything.  Oh wait I have one more thing to show you that I made this weekend.

I have been wanting to get back at beading bracelets.  There are so many cute ones on pinterest and this was a pattern from Reggies Creations on Etsy.  So I decided to purchase the pattern after discovering I had some beads that would work perfectly!  It was fun and easy to do.  A nice break from sewing too:)

Linking with MCM, Design wall Monday and Monday Making

Progress

I feel I made a little progress this week.  At the beginning of the week these 5 snowmen runners were waiting their turn to be quilted.

And by Wednesday morning these 4 were totally done.  On my longarm, I put on a red snowflake fabric long enough to quilt all 4 of them.  Why not all 5 you might ask...well if you look closely at the photo above you will see that the far right one didn't get it's last grey border yet!  I forgot to do them and moved onto piecing something else😕    How's that---blossoming flowers with snowmen!!

Who can resist such a cute face!  I will be listing them in my Etsy shop soon.

Strawberries have been a good buy lately so we have been enjoying quite a few.  I happen to have some on hand and our raspberries are in their third year and are yielding something worthy of freezing a few.  

But I decided to put some fresh ones with the strawberries for a very delicious fruit pizza.  YUM!

 Mama turkey brought her chicklets out for a walk through the backyard.  At first I only saw one baby and then they just kept popping up out of the grass and ferns.  I couldn't get all 12 of them in the same picture!

Yesterday and today I worked on some fall panels, turning them into wall hangings.  Stay tuned for the finishes next week. 

Linking with Sarah, TGIFF and Foto Fun

My newest love...

On Saturday, late in the afternoon, my 2nd box for this year from Island Batik arrived.  It's my newest love-you'll see why in the photos! 

As an Island Batik Ambassador we are given 2 boxes of the most delicious fabric that we use in our monthly challenges.  It was like they were reading my mind as lately I was hoping I would get some gorgeous purples and teal and boom here it is in 2.5" strips with coordinating yardage!!  And don't you just love the new checkerboard batik that will be out this fall.  It's cute name is Check it Out.

 A 17 pound box, that's a whole lot of fabric.

There was a fabulous 10" stacker set of brown, black and gold, 5 yards of Custard neutral and some black, grey and white solids-I didn't even know they had solids!

And Hobbs also sent along batting for us, which is just super wonderful.  There is a wool one, a wool/cotton blend and also a cotton one.  Thank you Hobbs!

And we are not done yet, more fabric to be seen!!  Another 10" stacker, these are Paisley Dot, I have used these before in the 2.5" strips and also in Fat Eighths.  So fun and bright.  Also a set of half yard cuts of blenders.  Are we spoiled or what---I love being spoiled, LOL   OMG even Auriful sent along more thread, there are small spools of several different weights for us to play with.  Thanks Aurifil!

Nope I am still not done showing you what they sent... Oh wait it's a surprise, I can't show you yet.  BUT you can come back and see what I make with it in January.  It is fabric being released at Fall Market so in January our projects will be made with the surprise fabrics for a big blog hop.  It is exciting!!!

Thank you Island Batik for all the wonderful fabrics and for treating us like Queens!!  I love being an Ambassador and hope to continue doing it:)

Linking with my favorite Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday linky parties that you can find on my left side bar. 

Working ahead for fall

In early June I was piecing these cute runners, I had started the pumpkin blocks while I was in Paducah.  There were enough made to piece 5 runners.  

They are pretty addictive and the pumpkins will use up some orange scraps.  The pattern is by The Cottage Rose.  Not affiliated, but she sure has cute patterns.  In fact I picked up some new ones at the MN quilt show a few weeks ago.  

Quilting them was pretty fun too! I mostly quilted them the same, the only variation was in the black sashings between each pumpkin.  The U turns are at different widths there.  I love the green leaves and tendrils that I quilted beside each pumpkin stem. 

Have you heard about this blog hop coming soon!  My day to post is July 25th so I hope you will come back and check out my project:)

Island Batik Modern challenge

Another month has rolled around, and as an Island Batik Ambassador the challenge was a Modern crib quilt.  Ooooh Modern, I love, I can do this.  I had so many ideas rolling around in my head it was hard to settle on just one!  But I finally did it.  The design is settled on, the fabric is picked out.  Get ready, set, go!

First things first, make strip sets with pretty colors!  Then trim then into rectangles setting the strips on the diagonal.  

Next add white sashings.  Then a deep purple one so they stand out beautifully on the lavender background.  And from there I forgot to take pic's of the other steps.  This was truly build the quilt as I went.  Meaning I did not have the sizes figured out ahead of time.  So somewhat improvisational. 

And before long it was pieced and the quilting done.  

All the piecing was done using the Aurifil thread that was provided by them.  The beautiful batiks were provided by Island Batik.  And Hobbs provided the batting.

I tried some new designs inspired by Jodi Robinson's new book and her new ruler that I picked up at the MN quilt show last week. 

Be sure to check out what my fellow Ambassadors are designing this month

Den Syende Himmel

Busy Hands Quilts

PamelaQuilts

Ark Angel Creations

Desert Bloom Quilting

Freemotion by the River

Yellow Cat Quilt Designs

Quilting Affection Designs

Inquiring Quilter

Bejeweled Quilts by Barb

Clever Chameleon

Sarah Goer Quilts

Mania for Quilts

Steph Jacobson

Inchworm Fabrics

Kauffman Designs

Moosestash Quilting 

BeaQuilter

Gateway Quilts & Stuff

Carole Lyles Shaw

Sally Manke

Mary Mack Made Mine

Kathleen McMusing

heARTs Creations

Sew Karen-ly Created

If These Threads Could Talk

The Quilt Rambler

Devoted Quilter

Slice of Pi Quilts

Creative Blonde

Vicki’s Crafts and Quilting

Masterpiece Quilting

Patterns by Jen

Powered by Quilting

Quilt in a not-Shell

Dizzy Quilter

Curlicue Creations

Lizard Creek Quilts

Little Bunny Quilts

MMM Quilts

Sew Increadibly Crazy

Adventerous Applique and Quilting

Sweetgrass Designs

Living Water Quilter

Whispers of Yo

I'll be linking with MCM, Linky Tuesday, Midweek Makers and Let's Bee Social

OMG quilt pieced

The Pixie Squares quilt is all pieced.  It was my choice for the June OMG challenge. The goal was to get it pieced and perhaps the quilting.  Time is running out and I have other things scheduled for the rest of the month.  The quilting will be my goal for next month.  I will show more photo's then.  BTW the pattern is by Whistlepig Creek.

I used the Pie Making Day by RJR jelly roll that I won last year, and white yardage for this quilt.  You can see how it looked at the beginning of the month HERE.  It really did go together quickly once I made myself sit back down and work on it!  

I'll be linking up with OMG at the end of the month.  And Tish's UFO busting today.  

I followed Jeanna's steps in correcting my email notifications of comments. Let's see if it worked for me:)

Customer Purse

Last week I was contacted by a previous customer to see if I could make her a purse with a longer handle.  She wanted another purple one.  No problem, I got to work pulling fabrics for her and this is the completed purse which I shipped out today.

This is made from one I designed for myself many years ago.  There are three outside pockets and eight inside-no excuse for not being organized!

After pulling out the purse fabric, I found several more pieces I wanted to make up plus I had purchased some new ones last week.  I quickly cut out four more and quilted them up and finished assembling them this morning.  The two in the front are fabrics I picked up during the MN quilt show.  The black and red one, well I picked up the striped pocket fabric and the fabric behind it in Paducah this spring and the other flowered piece was in my stash and they matched perfectly!

What's next you ask...I have started the quilting on my June IB modern quilt.  And working on some more table runners.   The weather here this week has been drippy and cloudy-enough already!!  However it does make me want to stay in and sew like crazy:)  

Linking with Sarah and Sherry

Collecting...

Fabric is what I collected more of this past week.  On Wednesday I drove up to St. Cloud, Minnesota and stayed with blog friend Wendy and her friends on Wednesday and Thursday nights.  We had a great time, some chatter and of course laughing.  The reason we were all up there was for the Minnesota Quilt show.

On the way up there I stopped at a fabric outlet called S. R. Harris, gotta love this huge store and great prices.  I found these three 60" wide fabrics in the front and the orange one in the back all for $3.99 yard!  The blue is only 45" wide but was only $2.99.  Great for backings, plus I couldn't let the polka dots and chevrons just lay there:)

At the show I found more fabric, some fun patterns and a panel. Actually the Christmas roll there has 2 more panels in it with the coordinating fabrics.  I might have brought home more than I am showing, hehe.

While in St. Cloud I met up with two other Island Batik Ambassadors, Suzy from MN(whom I have met before) and Terri from IA, who were also attending the quilt show.  It was a great evening, except for the super spicy hot Buffalo chicken wrap!!  It was way too spicy for me and the waitress graciously ordered me a burger instead.

 Today I got a start on my June Island Batik project-it's Modern month!!  Stay tuned for the result.

While I was stitching away I decided it was a good day for a home made strawberry/banana smoothie, with a swirl of chocolate on top:)

Linking with Freemotion by the River

Orange scraps make great pumpkins

I love it when I can use up some scraps/strings in my table runners.  I did not have to cut a single orange or gold from yardage to do these pumpkins.  The black of course came from yardage. In fact I have used up all of that fabric. 

The pumpkin blocks were started during our camping trip to Paducah in April.  Then they sat in a tote while I worked on other things after getting home. Yesterday I pulled them out and started in finishing them and before the day was done I had three flimsy runners done.  Ahhhhhhhh.

These were inspired from a pattern of a pumpkin quilt/wall hanging by Cottage Rose that I picked up last summer at the MN quilt show.  Here is my wall hanging that I did last year.  After making it I kept thinking this would made a great runner.  These are some really fun and quick blocks to make. I will be making a wall hanging also.  Now they can wait their turn for quilting;)

This is technically a UFO since it was started and then sat waiting to get finished.  So I will link to Tish's UFO party.   And since they were made using scraps I will link to Cynthia's Oh Scrap.  It's a rainy day here, I think I will go sew some more!

It's Patriotic time!

My post today is all about some patriotic finishes.  And maybe a few other non patriotic;)

 I am so excited to show you my stars and stripes runner that I whipped up yesterday!  This is my squirrel for sure.  It hit me like a ton of bricks.  While working on something else I started thinking I really need another patriotic runner to put in my shop.  I knew I wanted stars and then all of a sudden this idea popped into my head and bam!  You should have seen me run, OK fast walk, to the sewing room!!!  First things first, pull out the patriotic fabric bin and pull 3 fabrics and decide I want a 14" block for the star.  But instead of having odd measurements for the flying geese star points I made a 12" star and then bordered it with 1" strips of blue to make the star float.  Oh yes I am liking the look...

Until I see this-how the heck did that happen, LOL  Ok I had to show you I am only human!!

When the stars where all done(correctly) I decided what size to make the center-white with red and blue stars.  From there I made wide bias tape red strips.  Using a curvy longarm ruler for a guide I used a purple disappearing pen and drew my lines and then applied the bias tape using Elmers glue.  The next step was to go quilt everything on the longarm, yes even sewing the bias tape down.  

Loops in the white stripes, continous curves in the star and blue stippling on the blue background.  I love, love, love how this came out!

This round wedge topper was done earlier this week.  Although it was pieced a couple months ago.  I kept the quilting simple with the standby hook swirl. 

Also done this week was another watermelon table runner. 

This is identical to one I did earlier this year and I blogged about it HERE so I won't go into details here again.

And then can you believe it, in the midst of warm summer temperatures I make snowmen table runners!  OK those of you that have followed me for a while will not be surprised at all!  

I have had a wonderful productive week.  There should be sewing time tomorrow and perhaps Saturday but I will only have two days next week to work and then I am off to the Minnesota Quilt Show!!!  

Linking with Sarah, TGIFF, and Myra