Jasmine progress

Do you want an update on the progress of my Jasmine quilt from Villa Rosa Designs?  Of course you do,right!

There are two different blocks. One has twelve squares and one has fifteen. All the blocks are done, except for cutting the solid squares to go in-between these. This was a jelly roll from Island Batik.  I will set them aside for a while. But I do plan on getting the top together by the end of April.  So there is my one monthly goal.

I'll be linking with OMG at Elm Street Quilts.

Jasmine lap quilt

A new project has been started!  I am not sure I can call it a squirrel since I had it planned since mid December.  Sometimes one has to wait for just the right time to start something. That was the case with this.  I wanted to piece a bunch of table runners before starting this one.  

The use of a jelly roll helped speed up this lap size quilt.  A lot of strip sewing ensued and then a lot of cutting. Before I could begin sewing up the block.  Still a long ways to go before it is ready to become a top. This would also be good for all those 2 1/2" squares that we seem to accumulate in our scrap bins.  A great leader/ender project.  The pattern is from Villa Rosa called Jasmine. 

There is no particular date that I have to get this done so it will be a little work here and there on it.  Recently I broke a needle on my Skyline 7 machine when the needle came down on my plastic 1/4" foot. Luckily it didn't hurt the foot, but something must have gotten screwed up as it was skipping stitches on the table runners I was sewing at the time.  It would skip right before and right after a thicker seam:( so the table runners got set aside for now.  But on these batik fabrics it is working perfectly, go figure!  At some point it will have to go get checked out.  

We had a little fun this past weekend, we went to an air show!  The best part was the Blue Angels.  Just love watching their maneuvers.

I know you all enjoy some pretty posie photos.  So I want to share these with you that we saw on one of our many bike rides.  Aren't these Bougainville just gorgeous.

Linking up with Monday Making, and Design Wall Monday.  Thank you ladies for hosting these linky parties for all of us to enjoy!

 

Painting Fun/Sock knitting

Today was such a fun day, a group of friends gathering for a rock painting day!  Most of us are not artists but thought it would be fun to cheer each other on.  Did you know that Pinterest has tons of ideas for easy to hard designs to paint on rocks. Just like quilting ideas are plentiful so are painting ones.  Here are the three I did.  

Seriously it was so fun, just letting go and enjoying being with friends.  We laughed and chatted for hours, we might even have done some snacking😋.  They said it was okay to show you all of our rocks we painted. 

Some of my evenings I knitted another sock.  I have it's mate in the works also.

I will be linking up with TGIFF hosted by Wendy today.  Won't you join me in linking up, we all love to see what you have been working on. 

Twelve pieced Gobble It Up table runners

 I like to work ahead on projects I need done for my Etsy shop.  Sometimes that means working ahead a few months, sometimes that means a LOT of months!  One would think I would be tired of making my turkey table runners, but I am not:)  I guess this photo proves that, haha.  Twelve runners all pieced.  They are identical except for the fact six have one neutral back ground and six have another. 

I just didn't want you to think I was just lazing around doing nothing!!  There might have been a few fun days thrown in here and there, but I am still sewing away.  

If you would like to make your own turkey table runner, I have the Gobble It Up! pattern in my Etsy pattern shop. 

I hope all is well in your corner in the world and have found some sewing therapy also. 

Linking with Peacock Parade, Finished or Not, TGIFF and Off The Wall Fridays. 

Did I meet my Goal?

Do you want to know if I met my One Monthly Goal (OMG).  Keep reading to find out.  Patty at Elm Street hosts the OMG each month in hopes of helping us move projects along.  When I remember, I like to post a goal in the beginning of the month and try hard to meet it.   This month was to make a bunch of red stars. 

Here is the start of the stars, I needed 10 of them.  I wanted 8" finished stars so I used my Accuquilt Go 8" cube to make quick work of it.  Before long I had five finished and then added spacer strips between the stars to make them fit the rows of black/gray blocks.  Another day I whipped up the other five stars.  

And then I couldn't stop, the stars got quickly sewn to the black/gray blocks that were already sewn into strips.  There are two rows of the blocks, then a star row followed by four rows of blocks, another star row and two more block rows. A fun quilt to make and I have been wanting to do a red and black quilt. I think this fits that desire quite well.  So yes I met my One Monthly Goal. 

I think I will add a small red border and then a tone on tone black or gray border to finish it off. This is a Missouri Star tutorial called Summer Stars. 

Linking with Elm Street Quilts, Midweek Makers and Wednesday Wait Loss

Sweet Cherries

While trying to stock up on Spring and Summer table runners I whipped up two cherry table runners.  They look pretty much like the ones I did last year with one exception, the background fabric has tiny little cherries on it.  This was a new purchase last year and I couldn't pass it up as I new it would be perfect for these runners. 

This is cherries #2 which is identical to the one above.  If I have the fabric, I like making identical ones as it is just as easy to cut for one as two or more when the fabric is out! The cherry block is from a freebie at Podunk Pretties. 

Hope you have all had a wonderful week!  I'll be linking up with Peacock Party, Off The Wall Fridays, and Finished Or Not

Some hand stitching

In my spare time I have been enjoying some hand embroidery.  I used to do a lot of it, mostly fall and snowmen and made them into pillows.  So when I saw Melissa at Pinker n Punkin Quilting was stitching these adorable snowmen blocks I jumped on the snowmen bandwagon!  

And three more, they are a pretty quick stitch. At first I did one in an evening. Then I stretched it out into two evenings. I wasn't in a hurry. 

And then I ran out of embroidery thread and I had to find a printer to print out a few more.  I finally got the thread and found a printer to use at the library.  So now I have one more done.  Eeek that is a horrible photo, the lighting was not very good!  They are all stitched on a very white fabric called Prairie cloth I think, I don't have the bolt handy to check. But it is a nice heavy cotton, I love the feel of it.  I used a FriXion pen to trace the pattern to the fabric. Then I can gently press with a hot iron to make any lines disappear when I am done.  Speaking of done, I have no idea yet of the setting for these cuties. Might be one quilt or it might be two or even three wall hangings.

I have always preferred to use a thin batting behind my fabric while I stitch and then I don't hoop my piece. It just feels comfortable to me.  There is one more in progress now and then I need to find more of that batting in order to finish up the twelve blocks.  So that is what has been hanging out on my design wall, what's on yours?  

Oh by the way, Happy Valentines to all my quilty peeps!!! 

Linking with Design Wall Monday and Monday Making. 

February Goal

 I have sorta forgotten about posting for a One Monthly Goal for a long time.  It's time I started  remembering!!  So I pulled out a quilt I started one year ago in hopes of working on it this month. It is a Missouri Star tutorial called Summer Stars.  Wait you say, I don't see any stars.  That is my goal to make stars. I think I only need 10 for the way I am going to do it.  They will be red stars on a white background.

 Won't you join me in cheering on lots of other quilters this month over at Elm Street Quilts.

Red scraps = Table scraps

I am going to start the year off by joining in Table Scraps at The Joyful Quilter this month.  I am glad Joy decided to host it for another year! The RSC color is red this month and the theme for Table Scraps is snowmen.  I just happen to have lots of red scraps to play with and it so happens one of the scraps has little snowmen in it, and one has snowflakes😉

First I pieced the red strings using approximately a 3" length and nothing over 2" wide.  I pieced enough to get a length of 18 1/2", and then trimmed to 2 1/2" wide.  And then using a 5" length, I pieced another 18 1/2" long strip and trimmed to 4 1/2" wide.  Next I made nine 4" x 2" (finished) flying geese units.  I added a black strip that was cut 1 1/2" wide to each side of the flying geese strip. Sew the red string units to black strips and you have pieced yourself a placemat and used some scraps in the process.  

Here is the little snowmen!

Linking up with:

Table Scraps

Finished or Not Friday

TGIFF

Oh Scrap

Pressing tip

Kathleen is hosting her Tips and Tutorials on the 22nd for the 3rd year.  We can all use new tips, right?  

My tip for you is a simple one that can be really helpful.  I like using my little Steam Fast iron for pressing seams open, especially on blocks but I have been known to use it on long rows in a table runner.  Because it is small it can get in small places without accidentally pressing other seams in a direction you don't want them to go.  

I also love that it is so lightweight it is less stress on my hands, and believe me this little iron gets hot!  Here I am pressing the beginning of a strawberry block on a wool pressing mat.  I hope this quick little tip helps you out too.

Please join me over at Kathleen's to either post your tip/tutorial or learn a new one.  Also linking with Monday Making

Break time is over!

Thanks for hanging in there while I took a month break from blogging.  From time to time I feel the need to not blog, do you ever get that way?  That doesn't mean I haven't been keeping busy though.  

After seeing a table runner Sarah made using a charm pack last year I decided I should use up a charm pack I had just sitting waiting for the right design to use it for.  Charm packs are so cute sitting in the store just waiting to jump into our hands;)  This one was Christmas fabrics with metallic accents.  The light colors I took from a different neutral charm pack.  

This was a quick but fun one to make.  I pulled out my Accuquilt 8" cube and used these two dies.  One for the HST's and the other to cut my charms to 4 1/2" square.  Just layer 6 charms and run it through your Accuquilt Go!  In just a minute or two you have enough cut for this table runner.  You could easily whip through some scraps to make this also. 

Please stop back tomorrow for a great pressing tip!

I'll be linking up on Sunday with Oh Scrap!

Monday to Monday Making, Design Wall Monday.

Large Gingham Hexagon Snowman

I just needed to make one more hexagon snowman table topper.  In looking through my grays for the outer border I came across this large gingham and thought it looked pretty good.  I am in love with it!

A little close up.  You can kind of see where I quilted it using the gingham as my guidelines to stitch on. 

And with that my friends I am signing off blogging until mid January.  From time to time we all need that break.  I appreciate all of you for taking time to read my blog and leave comments.  I wish you all the Merriest of Christmases and a Happy New Year!!  

Our kids and grandkids were here this past weekend for our Christmas celebration.  It was so good to have everyone for the first time since before Covid hit. One evening we went for a drive to see Christmas lights, these trees were magnificent in person, I hope they give you some holiday cheer too!  These people had the trees on three sides of their property peppered with lights. 

HO HO HO Merry Christmas!

Log Cabin Holly Leaves

Last Friday I showed the red batiks I was working with and here they are all finished.  It's always fun to try a new design.  This one was inspired by a tutorial from Connie at Free motion by the river blog.  I have wanted to try this design ever since she came out with it, but never got around to it.  I did change it up a bit.  First I decided to use all red and white for the log cabin where as Connie used a mix of red and green along with the white.  

The other thing I changed was the number of holly leaves in each corner from three to two and only one berry for each set of leaves. That makes for a lot less applique;)  Did you notice all of these fabrics are batik? 

As you can see in the photo above I kept the quilting simple in the white with a meander using white Glide thread.  The fun came in the red using a freehand holly leave and loops to represent the berries. This was done with a dark red Glide thread. 

I found a fun fabric in the stash for the backing. 

I hope you enjoyed seeing something new;)  I sure enjoyed making it.  

Linking with:

Finished or Not Friday

Peacock Parade

TGIFF

Friday Foto Fun

 

Maple leaves

 A while ago I was asked if I could make a maple leaf table runner by a repeat customer.  She had a specific one in mind.  A Shabby Fabrics one. I checked with them to see if it was okay for me to make it and sell it.  Some say yes and some say no.  They were kind and said I could.  This last week I had some time to work on it finally.  The customer was in no hurry and knew I couldn't get right at it. 

It is a wonderfully written pattern, but personally I didn't like appliqueing around all the points. I am glad to be done and glad my customer loves it.  The leaves use up some scraps in orange, green, gold and red. 

No sewing today as I have end of year book work to do.  This week I plan to be cutting out, kiting up table runners to work on this winter.  What will you be doing? Do you cut things out ahead of time and kit them up?

Linking to Oh Scrap!