Clicking off the UFO's

When you finish one project you might have a tendency to look around your sewing room and see what UFO or WIP needs attention next.  In my case I had parts of green trees still sitting out on my sewing counter.  These were leftovers from tree runners I had made last fall.














So I cleaned up the mess and the result were three tree table runners.  The timing couldn't have been more appropriate.  The pattern for this runner is from a Quilt A long that Heather Mulder Peterson from Anka's Treasures had a few years ago.  The pattern for the runner was just for participants but you can find a tree quilt in one of her books.  Back to the timing...I met Heather on Thursday at the MN quilt show.  She is the MN quilter of the year!  She is such a sweet person.  I have loved her work for a long time so it was fun to actually get to chat with her a bit.  If you have been reading my blog a while you might remember that I thought I saw her and her boys on a bike trail near where she lives a couple years ago.  After the fact I emailed her and yep it was indeed her, she remembered because they had asked about our Terra Trikes.

I am glad to have that little space of my counter cleared off.  Will it stay that way, I doubt it.  I seem to work just fine in chaos.  Sure I would love to have one of those rooms where everything has a place and it is in it's place all the time.  Preferable behind closed cabinet doors.  I think I used to have that but I have long since outgrown my sewing room.  You would think I would have learned a lesson by now...stop buying more!!!  Perhaps I need to just sew faster!   What project should I work on next?

Linking with Tish for UFO Busting and Cynthia for Oh Scrap

Trying Something New

I tried a new to me pattern yesterday.  It was 'sew' much fun!  A Tuffet pincushion, how stinking cute is this!!

These fabrics, of course, are the wonderful Island Batiks;)  These were sent to me by Island Batik for use in our monthly challenges.  This month the challenge is to try a new technique or pattern.  I knew that I had several scraps of paisley dots left so I chose my favorite colors.  You don't need much fabric to make this little guy.  These are my absolutely favorite colors. 

I needed a piece of thin wood from DH's stash, no problem he had a small piece for me to make a 3 inch circle.  In fact I had everything on hand I needed to make it up.  Only took a few hours. I would have been done a little sooner if I had read the pattern thoroughly before beginning to cut out the fabric:(   But it doesn't matter now because I just love the finished tuffet!!  

 Little wooden balls for the feet. I used this light green Aurifil thread for the piecing.  I love looking down at the top of this cutie patootie!

This button came home with me from Arizona.  In fact a couple bags of buttons came home with me, they were only $1 for a big bag.  And they had lots of black buttons in there for snowman eyes;)  As I was getting ready for the needed button on the tuffet I spotted them and saw this one that was perfect for it.   The tuffet pattern can be found HERE.

All ready to sew, in a couple days.  First I need to attend the MN quilt show Thursday and Friday.  I will have time to sew on Saturday because DH has a meeting to attend. 

                                                         
Here is a list of all of the creative and talented Island Batik Ambassadors.  They would love it if you visited their blogs too:)  You are sure to be inspired!

• Alison Vermilya ~ Little Bunny Quilts
• Anita Skjellanger ~ Quilt in a not-Shell
• Anja Clyke ~ Anja Quilts
• Anne Wiens~ Sweetgrass Creative Designs
• Barb Gaddy ~ Bejeweled Quilts by Barb
• Bea Lea ~ BeaQuilter
• Becca Fenstermaker ~Pretty Piney
• Bill Locke ~ Studio Bill Locke
• Carla Henton ~ Creatin’ the Sticks
• Carol Moellers ~ Carol Moellers Designs
• Carolina Asmussen ~Carolina Asmussen
• Connie Kauffman ~ Kauffman Designs
• Connie Kreskin- Campbell ~ Freemotion by the River
• Denise Looney ~ For the Love of Geese
• Dione Gardner-Stephen ~ Clever Chameleon
• Emily Leachman ~ The Darling Dogwood
• Gail Sheppard ~ Quilting Gail
• Gene Black ~ Gene Black
• Geraldine Wilkins ~ Living Water Quilter
• Jackie O’Brien ~ If These Threads Could Talk
• Janet Yamamoto ~ Whispers of Yore
• Jen Strauser ~ Dizzy Quilter
• Jennifer Fulton ~ Inquiring Quilter
• Jennifer Thomas ~ Curlicue Creations
• Joan Kawano ~ Moosestash Quilting
• Joanne Hart ~ Unicornhearts
• Karen Neary ~ Sew Karen-ly Created
• Kathleen McCormick ~ Kathleen McMusing
• Kim Lapacek ~ Persimon Dreams
• Laura Piland ~ Slice of Pi Quilts
• Leah Malasky ~ Quilted Delights
• Leanne Parsons ~ Devoted Quilter
• Lisa Nielsen ~ Lisa Lisa and the Quilt Jam
• Lori Haase ~ Dakota City Quilter II
• Mania Hatziioannidi ~ Mania for Quilts
• MaryEllen McAuliffe ~ Mary Mack’s Blog
• Michelle Roberts~ Creative Blonde
• Pamela Boatright ~ PamelaQuilts
• Sally Manke ~ Sally Manke
• Sarah Goer ~ Sarah Goer Quilts
• Sherry Shish ~ Powered by Quilting
• Stephanie Jacobson ~ Steph Jacobson Designs
• Suzy Webster ~ Adventerous Applique and Quilting
• Terri Vanden Bosch ~ Lizard Creek Quilts
• Tina Dillard ~ Quilting Affection Designs
• Tish Stimple~ Tish’s Adventures in Wonderland
• Toby Lischko ~ Gateway Quilts & Stuff
• Vasudha Govindan ~ Storied Quilts
• Vicki Schlimmer ~ Vicki’s Crafts and Quilting
• Sandra Walker mmm! quilts

Linking with:

NTT

Can I get a Whoop Whoop

Finished or Not Friday
Friday Foto Fun
TGIFF

Sewing with the grandson

Last Monday and Tuesday our oldest grandson, I'll call him B, spent the days at our house.  He wanted to sew with Grammy!  I thought that was a rather fabulous way to spend my birthday.  So in the mornings he sewed with me and in the afternoon he spent time with grandpa. 

B wanted to make a blanket quilt for his stuffed animals, he thinks it is a blanket as that is all they use in their house:(  He has done this with me before, but this time it need to be bigger to cover more animals!  I have a stack of charms for him to pick from.  He then arranged them how he wanted and with a little reminder of safety of the sewing machine he was happy to sit in front of the machine.  By noon he had the top pieced. 

When he came on Tuesday I had baseball fabric ready for him to learn how to make a pillowcase.  This was only the second one ever that I have done.  And I didn't do much on this one.  I found directions online for the burrito case and had him read them and then I cut and pinned.  He did all the sewing and did an awesome job for an 8 year old.  He was pretty proud of his sewing!  Here he is with his projects.

In some of my free time I love to make greeting cards, I forget to show them most of the time.  But I decided to try to sell some in my Etsy shop so I finally got a photo!  I am going to sell them in sets of 6 cards with envelopes. 

The hubby and I had a great Saturday riding bikes on an old paved railroad bed.  We've been to this place before but several years ago, it was nice to go there again.  Gorgeous weather for it.  That night we were invited to grill out at our friends house.  Good thing we did some fun things as it turned cool and very overcast on Sunday. 

What's in store for your week?  We have the MN quilt show in town, I'll be there on Thursday and Friday.  In between that I want to continue working on my OMG turkey runners.  I have a few other runners to bind also.  And maybe a couple more runners to piece, I have another idea or two for snowman runners:)  That bike ride must have relaxed me as I got these ideas while going down the trail!  Whatever you do this week have fun!

I finally picked this months OMG

It is really hard to pick just one project for One Monthly Goal, OMG.  There are always tons of things on my list to work on and I usually just decide the night before what I will work on the next day.  Now there are times that I don't want to do that project when I wake up and well that is okay as long as I don't have a deadline! 

For the month of June I did decide I wanted to work on getting all the parts together for 10 turkey table runners.  Now that is a whole lot of feathers!!  There are 10 dresden blades per turkey and 2 turkey's per table runner and 10 runners translates into 200 feathers!!  This is only part of them.  So for June I will make the rest of them and assemble into groups of 10 each.  And I hope to glue at least 10 turkey's onto 5 table runners and add their bodies.  Elmer is my friend again, I glue the peaks of the dresdens to my background fabric, and applique them down while quilting on my longarm. 

And this one is from a batch of turkey runners I made last year.  So the new ones will resemble this in the end.

Linking with OMG at Elm Street Quilts

A new table topper

The month of June has just begun and a squirrel already attacked me!  Oh boy what does the month have in store for me.

It is sometimes strange how we quilters come up with ideas for a new project.  Friday afternoon I actually took some time to relax and enjoy the beautiful mid 70 degree day by laying on my deck.  That is when the idea came to me to make 60 degree triangles for a hexie table topper and applique a snowman head to each triangle.

Given that I was in the middle of piecing three other table runners, I filed the idea after quickly drawing a pic on a post it note pad.  That evening the hubby and I went for a bike ride, during that bike ride I kept picturing the hexie snowman topper.  Now I should have been just enjoying the scenery shouldn't I have.  Saturday morning arrives and I quickly finished piecing the tree runners I was working on.  We thought we were going for another bike ride Saturday afternoon, but the weather wasn't the best so we decided to stay home.  Enter the squirrel, and I let him have his way.  He helped me gather my gray and red fabrics, he even pulled out my 60 deg. ruler!  Yep it was going to happen.

Piecing the triangles was easy peasy, sew three together, press seams open and then sew the sets of three together.  Then applique on the snowman heads, I saved the felt noses for after quilting along with the button eyes.  I didn't want the gray fabric showing through the white so I used a fusible interfacing on the back of the faces.  I didn't use any fusible web then, but next time I might try it in addition to the interfacing.  I used Elmer Glue on the edges of the faces to hold them in place while I blanket stitched around them.

Add a small red border for a pop of color and a different gray for the outside border.  And it was off to the longarm to quilt.  A quick stipple in the center around the heads.  When I quilted the outside border I used a ruler for my straight lines and stitched right off the edge, I like how the lines intersect and give a nice pattern of diamonds in the corners.  I had this pieced and quilted before it was time to make dinner!  

A pretty red print for the backing finished this off nicely.  This piece was one of several yards, 42 yards to be exact that I picked up at our Walmart for only $1 a yard!!  Yes you read that right, I hit the jackpot on Friday morning, As I walked past the fabric department, there was a bin in the main isle.  I should just check it out I said, EEEK $1 a yard, what unheard of!!  The whole bin was from their calico wall they were just clearancing out and getting ready for the new stuff.  SCORE!!  So many great pieces for backings.  I checked to make sure they were of nice quality before I said I'll take what is left on the bolt!  Now to find a place to store them in my already full sewing room.  Guess I better get these fingers off to the sewing room!

A little bit of nature for your enjoyment. Jack in the Pulpit grows wild in our yard. 

These are growing wild in lots of places in our area.  These happen to be by our mailbox.  Gotta love me some purple flowers.  I think they are a type of phlox.   Yesterday we had a nice bike ride on an awesome paved trail that goes through town. Down by the river there are just gobs and gobs of these purple patches with a few white ones thrown in here and there.

Linking with:  Monday Making, Design Wall Monday

Limes and Oranges

The lemon slice placemats needed their cousins done.  So I listened and got right to it.   Introducing 'Aren't you Orange'

 I have listed them in my Etsy shop selling them as a set of two.  

 I sew the orange print and white together, quilt them, then applique the orange wedges and bind them. 

 And the lime slices.

 I had fun pulling the dishes together to match the placemats. 

Don't they look cute all together!

Linking with Midweek Makers, Wednesday Wait Loss, NTT

Snowmen in May for OMG

It's not that I want winter again, but I have 3 snowman table runner finishes.  While we were traveling this past winter I had taken along kits I made up for my snowman table runners.  Yes I have to have my sewing day/s therapy even while having other kinds of fun!  I pieced 6 of these cutie pies but have not had a desire to quilt them yet.  So when May OMG rolled around I figured that would be a good way to get on with the finish.  My goal was to quilt and bind three of them.  

Here they are all finished, it happened a week ago but just didn't get it into the blog schedule:)

I used a cute grey and white bubble fabric for the backing. 

These will soon be appearing in my Etsy shop again.  People are starting to buy fall decor already so why not get a head start on getting winter decor also!

Linking up with OMG at Elm Street Quilts

More squirrels have hijacked me!!

Wow I have been tortured encouraged by the squirrels again.  Not once, not twice, not three times but four times this month!  And three of those were in the last three days!!   These were all DrEAMi projects,  Drop Everything And Make It.

The first squirrel of the month was in the form of dragonflies that you can see HERE.

These are squirrel number two.

.

My good friend Wendy at Pieceful Thoughts started it when she showed her cute round placemats HERE.  My fingers couldn't get to the site fast enough to purchase the pattern.  Thankfully it was a download so I could read it and plan right away.  Thank you Wendy! The pattern is from s.o.t.a.k handmade.  I thought some gray and red ones would go with a snowman table runner.

They were so fun to make and then enter squirrel number three saying 'you gotta make round patriotic placemats to go with the patriotic table runners'.  Sure why not I thought! 

And in walks squirrel number four, geesh my brain is working overtime, LOL.  The wedges in the round placemats made me think of citrus fruits and we happened to be eating oranges lately.  So you following me here...hmmm why not make citrus placemats and make them oval and have the fruit wedges at one end.  

I pieced the white and print together, quilted them and then appliqued on the lemon wedges.  The perfect backing from the stash;)

All ready for a summer picnic!  That is if the squirrels stay away long enough. They are already looking in my window and whispering limes and oranges.  And maybe, just maybe, the oranges will get made yet this month.  I have begun listing these in my Etsy shop.

I hope you have enjoyed my DrEAMi squirrel adventures this month!  Hope you have a fabulous weekend.

Linking with Sandra for DrEAMi and MCM

Churn Dash turns Modern with Hobbs

This month for our Island Batik Ambassador Challenge we were to make a baby size modern theme quilt and use Hobbs Batting in it.  Hobbs is an industry partner with Island Batik.

 When I knew that May was our Modern month I was delighted and knew right away what I wanted to make.  No, no, no, I told myself when I kept thinking of other designs I could do instead.  No stick to the first design this month for once, I said!

 I turned to EQ8 to mock up an elongated churn dash block.  And then set about designing a strip quilt with those blocks and some solid black spacers so that I could have the two outside rows of churn dash staggered.  To set it all off I finished with 2" colored Batiks alternating with solid black ones.  Did you know that Island Batik now has solids in Gray, Black and White.  They are just wonderful, but then all Island Batiks are wonderful;)

 Then it was time to open a package of Hobbs Black batting.  Now using Hobbs is nothing new to me as I use it almost exclusively. However, I have never had the opportunity to use their black.  It was fabulous to use in this black quilt, I didn't have to worry about any batting pokies show through.  It does seem a bit thinner than the natural 80/20 that I use all the time.  But for this baby quilt that was not a problem as it will keep the quilt soft and snuggly.

Also helping to keep it soft I just did some freehand wavy lines every two inches.

 Thank you Island Batik for providing the fabrics and Hobbs for the batting.   I have decided to donate this quilt for Sarah's H2H challenge.  My donations will be taken to our local Crisis Nursery center.




Linking with Finished or Not Friday, Whoop Whoop,  H2H, TGIFF, Friday Foto Fun and Put Your Foot Down

Triangle messiness

In an attempt to use up some triangles from other projects I was playing around.  Not really loving what I did, but done is good and it will keep someone snuggly.  Plus it is out of my closet!  Last week I posted #5 finish for Q2 FAL.  At the time I forgot that I had not posted #4, this is it.

I tried out Susan's Dragon Fruit freemotion design.  I wanted it as an allover so I did it on a larger scale.  

This is one of the donated backings from a friend.  It was a stretchy terry type fabric. Since it was a little stretchy I handled it with care and had no problem.  In fact it turned out great and was super snuggly when it was off the frame and bound.  And look at the great texture. 

This will be a H2H donation quilt.  I will be donating six quilts this year to our local Crisis Nursery Center.  

Linking with UFO Busting,  Oh Scrap, and Sarah's H2H. 

What does a Dragonfly and a Squirrel have in common?

You might say how could they have anything in common except for being out in nature.  But to me I chased a squirrel until it became this dragonfly table runner.  This is my DrEAMi squirrel.

One day while at JoAnn Fabrics, searching for something else of course, I saw this new dragonfly fabric on their Keepsake Calico wall.  Being in the mood for finding more spring/summer ideas for table runners for my Etsy shop, I figured this would be a good start to something.  Well that is the way I tend to shop.  I look for fabrics that would be useful and usually not having any particular design in mind.  The fabric I am talking about is the border of this runner.  And who could resist when they had it in my favorite aqua color.  Yes they had a couple other colors too, but I don't even remember what they were!  

Now you should all be proud of me that it only took about 10 days for me to use it instead of letting it ripen for 2 years!!

When the time had come that I just had to use this fabric I turned to EQ8 and did a search in there for dragonfly.  Luck was on my side, they had an applique one, just perfect for this runner.  All I did was enlarge it.  Off to the stash to see what other fabrics I might find that would pull this all together.  Yep I had them all just sitting there waiting;)

I quickly traced the dragonfly parts on the fusible and got to appliqueing them on.  Now I got so excited by how stinkin' cute these were that I didn't take time to space them out better!  Do you ever do that?  Then comes the quilting, I thought the dragonflies needed some flowers to land on.  So loops and flowers for the center and I stitched close to the dragonfly all the way around too. The border just wanted me to do piano keys on every other line that was already on the fabric, so no ruler needed. 

And the perfect backing leftover from a quilt.  This runner made it into the shop the same day I quilted it.  One day start to finish isn't too bad!

Linking with 

Wednesday Wait Loss

Midweek Makers

NTTT

DrEAMI at Sandra's on the last Saturday in May.

Scrappy butterflies

Another neglected project from 'the closet' is moving along a little bit.  I saw this EPP butterfly on pinterest, well let's say a while back;). I made 2 of them and then stuck filed them away in 'the closet'.   Recently I needed a road trip project and I thought of them.  So I finished up 2 more of them and working on another.

My question to you is what should I make out of them?  Setting suggestions?  I just started them because they were cute and a way to use some 30's repro scraps!

I'll share a little of our MN spring with you.  

Happy Mother's Day to all of you!  Hope your day is wonderful.

Linking with Oh Scrap!