To Do Tuesday #6

Another week has rolled around so let's see what everyone has accomplished this past week.  You can check everyone's progress at Roseanne's To Do Tuesday linky party.

My goal for this week was to hopefully sew blocks for five leaf table runners. Whoo hoo I met my goal.

It was a really windy day for the photo so I had to hold them down with this little rock😏.  Enough blocks for five table runners with four colors of leaves for each one makes for 20 blocks for the week.  Not bad considering I had lots of other fun things to go do this past week.

I know it is not fall leaf season, but working ahead on fall and winter things for my craft shows is always a good thing.

This coming week is another busy one for me so I will keep the goal simple this week also.

1. Put the blocks together and get started on the pieced borders.

Linking with To-Do Tuesday.

LoveCrafts review

I think it was November perhaps early December that an online store called LoveCrafts contacted me to see if I would be interested in doing a review for them.  In exchange they sent me a set of these beautiful fat quarters and an Olfa Endurance blade. 

LoveCrafts has something for knitting, crocheting, Cross Stitch and now quilting!  They were quick to send it and it came in a cute pink package.  I wish I had snapped a pic of it for you. But I was not thinking about the package, I wanted to see what was inside!!  

The Endurance blade by Olfa was put in my rotary cutter in mid December and is just as sharp now as it was then and I have cut a bunch of fabric.  The fat quarters are by Windham and were very nice to work with. 

Here is what I made with them.

LoveCrafts has a 20% off sale on most things right now.  They are a global community for makers everywhere. Check them out and see what you think. 

Linking with Midweek Makers

To-Do Tuesday#5

Wow this is To-Do Tuesday #5 for me already!  Every time I wonder where the time goes, bing, bang, boom here we are in February. This week I didn't get as much time to sew but I squeaked in with my goals met.

Here is the list of what I wanted to get done and the outcome of that.

1. Work on a table runner using these aqua fat quarters by Windham from the Love Craft online shop.  DONE

I needed a skinny little table runner for the entertainment center in our camper so I thought this would be the perfect use for them.  Since the decor in the camper is brown I wanted to liven it up a bit with the aqua.  I happened to have this leaf print brown fat quarter in my stash and there are aqua leaves in it. A perfect combo.

Usually I longarm quilt everything but this time I decided to employ the wonderful walking foot in my Janome Skyline7.  Easy to install, easy to use.  After layering my matching brown backing, Hobbs thermore batting and the runner flimsy I made fast work of squiggly lines down the length of the runner.

 Here it is at work;)  The shelf under the TV quickly becomes a catch all space and I wanted to prevent the wood from getting scratched.

2. Make 5 of the red and gray string blocks pieced on phone book pages.  DONE

And here are all of them together. I am really really liking how this is looking.  

3. Finish a donation quilt.  DONE
I talked about this UFO in last Saturdays post.

Alrightee then, what should I work on this coming week.  

It's gonna be a busy two weeks ahead so I am only going to list one thing I want to get moving on this week.

1. Start piecing my fall leaf table runners. I hope to get the blocks pieced for 5 of them. 

Linking up with my blog quilting friends over at HomeSewnByUs for To-Do Tuesday. 

Diamonds from HRTs UFO

Clicking another UFO off the list or shelf in my case.  Last summer I wanted to make another project using HRTs (half square rectangles).  I have made a couple table runners( HERE with this method and loved the process and results.  The tutorial for this block can be found HERE.

As I mentioned I wanted to make this last summer, well I got started with these 3 blocks and then other squirrels jumped in the front line and this squirrel got shoved to last place;)

 Fast forward to the end of December and I found myself with a little time. So I decided I would make a few more blocks. Once again more squirrels ran to the front of the line and pushed and shoved this little guy to the back again.  This week I said 'Okay enough', let me put this flimsy together.  Those other squirrels heard the determination in my voice and backed down, LOL.

These fabrics were given to me by Henry Glass for a few projects in one of their Desire to Inspire challenges a couple years ago.  After completing the projects for them I had leftover fabrics.  I will use them for a couple donation quilts.   When placing the border fabric I wanted the barns facing the interior of the quilt so the little sheep in the background fabric could always find their way to the barn;) 

Such a fun quilt with fun fabrics. Off to the 'to be quilted' pile for when I am in that mood. 

Linking with Tish for UFO Busting.

To-Do Tuesday #4

Let's see how I did with my To-Do list this past week. 

1. Work on some red and gray string blocks. Done

Six sewn and so much fun. Maybe this will be the setting and maybe it won't.  Time will tell.
I love sewing these onto phone book pages. 

2. Work on a tutorial for Accuquilt.  Done
Not only did I work on it I finished piecing it.  But of course I can't show you the finished piece yet so this in progress photo will have to do for now.  Next will be writing up the tutorial.

3. Cutting scraps into 2.5" blocks.  Done
I did cut several green and a few neutral green 2.5" blocks with my accuquilt. I use the 2.5" from the eight inch cube set. 

Oh boy what should I put on the list for this next week.  So many things I could choose. I could just do more of what I did this week, however, that seems boring right now!  

Ok decision made.

1. Piece a table runner with my Windham aqua fat quarters from Love Crafts. 

2. Piece five red and gray string blocks.

3. Finish a UFO donation quilt. 

Thanks for taking a peek at what I have been up to.  Let's all hop over to HomeSewnByUs for To-Do Tuesday

To Do Tuesday # 3

My To-Do list for January 13th through January 20th was...

1. Work on more Valentine runners-Done
2. Sewing wedges together that I cut the previous week-Done

One more Valentine runner done for a total of four pieced so far this year.

Wedges for five sunflower table runners sewn into 15 flowers. My quilty friends that is 225 wedges!! There are still more cut and ready when I need them. It always feels good to have a start on a runner or two or three so I can make them up faster.

                                                  From wedges to blades to flowers.

So what is on my list for this week January 21st through January 27th.

1. Work on some red and gray string blocks.

2. Work on a tutorial for Accuquilt.
3. Cutting scraps into 2.5" blocks.

Hop over to HomeSewnByUs blog to see what others are working on this week.

UFO turns into Lion King snuggly

One of my goals this year is to make more donation quilts.  I thought it would be great to make at least 1 per month.  In the past I have been able to do more than that.  One year alone it was 30 quilts I made and donated.  There were all different sizes, it is just so satisfying to make and give. So the goal is 12 for the year and if I surpass that I'll be doing a happy dance.

So with that in mind here is the first flimsy all pieced.  Several years ago a friend gave me a stack of Lion King blocks.  There were only two different blocks and it had me puzzled as to a layout for them.  This year would be the start of using these and I came up with this setting.  As I often do I went to my stash to see what colors I could pull out to work with.  There is green, yellow and blue.  I thought there was enough blue in the blocks themselves, so I chose the yellow and the green for the main contrasting sashing.  The green made this turn out better than I thought!  It looks striped without any work:)  But the sashings would be pretty plain so I added the blue squares to break it up.

It is about 40" square and will make some baby a snuggly quilt. I don't have a definite plan for where I will donate it at this time.  The quilting will be done after I get several more made and quilt up a storm all at once;)

Do you enjoy making donation quilts?  I sure do!  Would you like to join me in making one per month this year?

Joining Tish for UFO Busting

To-Do Tuesday #2

It's To-Do Tuesday again over at Home sewn by us, how can the week possibly have gone by already!!  I stayed plenty busy, but also managed to work on this weeks goal.

Here is what I listed I wanted to do:
1. Work on Valentine table runners-done

2. Cut out wedges for turkey, sunflower and poinsettia table runners-done

And here is what I have done.

1. Overall I am pleased to have finished piecing three of the seven Valentine table runners.

2. The cutting for the wedges was so fast and easy. The end of November I was contacted by LoveCrafts to see if I would like to receive some goodies in exchange for a review for them.  Certainly I would love to do that was my reply.  They sent me some beautiful aqua fat quarters from Windham and an Olfa Endurance 45mm blade to review.  They were quick to send out the products and I am loving the Endurance blade.  It cut through these wedges so quickly using 6 layers of batiks for the turkey table runners.

And then I tried 8 layers of these batiks for the sunflower table runners, easy peasy!

But I was curious and had time to cut more so I layered up 10 with no problem. This blade is so sharp. For accuracy sake I wouldn't recommend doing 10 layers all the time.  But I wanted to experiment and these wedges are a bit forgiving if they are not spot on, but I feel like they are!

I'll keep you posted on it's performance as time goes on.  I will also be reviewing the aqua fat quarters in the future too.  At that time I will give you more info on LoveCrafts. But in the meantime you can check out all the products they have available. They have knitting, sewing and now quilting items. They also have a January sale going on, there might even be a window popping up to offer you 15% off your first order.

To-Do for the week of Jan. 13th through Jan. 20th.

1. Work on more Valentine runners
2. Start sewing those wedges together that I cut this past week.

I hope you'll join us at Roseanne's and post your goals for this week.

To-Do Tuesday

I have never been one to make a real list of things I need or want to do.  Yes sure I have a mental list, but I don't take time to write it down.  Fellow blogger friend Roseanne is hosting so I thought I would try to join in, at least now and then;)

1. This week I would love to get started on making more Valentine table runners.  I have kitted up several identical ones.  It just is so much faster to cut and sew in stages like an assembly line. 

2. The second thing I would like to work on is cutting out wedges for my sunflower table runners, turkey table runners and poinsettia ones.  Yes I know Thanksgiving and Christmas is done but I am always trying to work ahead for the crafting season.  

I'll try to check in next week and let you all know if I accomplished this weeks projects on my To-Do list. 

Linking with To-Do Tuesday

Charm squares

In the spirit of using some stash and doing good at the same time I whipped up this donation quilt. Originally I saw it on Cynthia's blog. She led me to the pattern from Cheryl for Moda.  So they were both my inspiration for this quilt.  The charm pack was one of 4 identical ones I won from our local guild quilt show a few years ago!  At the moment I can't remember whose charm pack it is.  I paired it up with some solid light pink and white.

It was a fun little flimsy quilt to whip up. One could use stash and cut 5" squares to make it with your scraps. I am guessing that will happen at my house in the future.  I hope to use my Accuquilt to cut charms out of my scraps this winter. Thanks Cynthia and Cheryl for the inspiration! 

Linking with Oh Scrap

Snowman collector

These hand embroidered blocks were started a long time ago.  They were not documented so I really don't remember, but I'd guess three years ago.  Hand embroidery is something I really love, but it needs to be a simple stitch nothing fancy.  These were in a 2009 Quiltmaker magazine but not started right away.  My local quilting friend made hers more like the pattern which had several different colors of thread used, along with many colors of fabric.  I wanted mine to be all red thread and have a redwork look.

So in the fashion of trying to clear out more UFO's I pulled this one off the self thinking I needed to embroider the last block.  But to my surprise they were all stitched!  This made me so happy that I quickly trimmed the embroidered blocks to size and put them up on the design wall.

Since I wanted more of a redwork look I had been stumbling with picking fabrics.  I just couldn't quite visualize what I wanted.  And then it hit me yesterday that I needed to make it look more like my snowman table runners, using the red and gray fabrics.   It was the light bulb moment!  I have quite a bit of gray strings and pieces in a bag, all leftovers from the runners.  So out they came and the auditioning began. 

Something else I changed was not following the instructions exactly for the size of sashings throughout the wall hanging.  It was such a fun afternoon of designing this wall hanging.  And I absolutely love the results.  This one is for me:)  Not sure how I want to quilt it so it will be a while before tackling that.  What a great way to end the year, with my snowman collector UFO.  It was so appropriate to work on this one yesterday while watching the snow fall outside.  

Now I am itching to stitch again!  But that might be a while yet as I am still knitting on my sock every once in a while. Won't you join Julie at The Crafty Quilter for her December UFO & WIP linkup.  She hosts one every month. 

Wishing you all a happy New Year!  I am looking forward to seeing what the new year brings in quilting blogland!!

Linking with Midweek Makers, December UFO & WIP

UFO Fireburst becomes a flimsy

You might not need an explantion of this quilt as you might recognize the pattern.  I am just a bit slow/behind on Tish's QAL for her Fireburst Mystery which began in May of 2018.  But I am happy it is now in a flimsy form instead of in pieces in baggies!

I have no excuse other than I always think I can get more done than I actually can.  This is the baby size.  Tish did a great job designing and implementing the QAL.  Thanks Tish! 

Wouldn't some rainbow sherbet be appropriate to eat while viewing this, I'll wait if you want to go get some:) The colors just remind me of it.  So glad to have another project off the counter and it'll be ready to quilt when I get in the mood to do it.  I'll use it as a donation quilt in 2020. 

Linking with Tish for UFO Busting

Happy Holidays!!

I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas!  And thank you for all the visits and comments you have left not only this past year but for all the years I have been blogging. 

Here is one last holiday project I squeezed in yesterday.  Ever since I did this tutorial on the Accuquilt blog I have wanted to turn the design into a table runner. 

I began with ironing fusible web onto the back of brown fabric for the gingerbread man(accuquilt die 55682). Layering four pieces over the die I ran it through my GO!Me.  And instantly you have 4 sweet gingerbread men. 

Next up is making the rick rack using Accuquilt die rick rack 55056.  I wanted a long strip to go the length of my table runner. So I cut red striped fabric the width of fabric and wide enough for the die and applied fusible web to the fabric.  In the photo below(sorry for the blurry) you can see I folded the fabric in order to get the long piece of rick rack.  I love that the die doesn't cut across the ends of the rick rack so you can do this. 

Next I applied the fusible web to the letters(alphabet 2 inch die), be sure to cut them with the fabric up, not the fusible web so you get them facing correctly!  At this point I fused the rick rack onto my runner background, light cream fabric cut 16" x width of fabric.  Using a zigzag stitch I appliqued the rick rack on. 

That is when I chose to quilt it before adding any more of the appliques.   After binding it, I machine appliqued the letters and gingerbread men on.  Notice I snuck in a little piece of purchased rick rack while appliqueing the gingerbread men to decorate them a bit. 

It sure dresses up my coffee table.  Yes you don't have to use a table runner on just your dining room table! 

Does this remind you of the story... Run, run as fast as you can. You can't catch me, I am the gingerbread man!

Linking with: Mid week Makers and December UFO & WIP

Merry Christmas!

From UFO to Flimsy

This Polka Dot squirrel was started last March. You can read about it's beginnings HERE.  It ended with it's interior section all pieced and that's when it became a UFO.  The time had come to work on other things and so it was put into the closet looking like this. 









Fast forward to earlier this week.  While digging looking in the closet for a different UFO, I came across this little squirrel screaming get me out of here!   I happened to have time so why not unfold it and check it out.  At the time I put it away I knew I wanted to make it larger.  So either more blocks or borders needed to happen.   Borders are the answer.  I love it when I have fabric in the stash that works with a project.  That means I can dig right into the work instead of running to the store.

All I needed to do was cut five 3" squares of each fabric.  Would you believe I still had all the fat quarters layered together, all I needed was to lay them out and cut!  I made fast work of putting together the borders and I had a flimsy finish.   I am happy with how this is turning out.


The tutorial for this block can be found HERE.

The small blue border is the one I had in my stash.

All of the fabrics have polka dots, and you know how much I love polka dots!  The good news is that I have enough fabric to make something else some day;)

I am in a piecing mood, so I'll put this one in the 'to be quilted' pile for later.  So happy to be moving a UFO forward.  I didn't take time to count how many UFOs, WIPs, and PIBs I found in that closet, but let's just say a LOT!  I might be able to squeeze in moving a couple more into flimsy stage before the end of 2019.

Part of my process of moving them to flimsy stage is cleaning off my sewing counters as there are a few there along with some fabrics that just didn't get put away after I was done with them. 


Won't you join me in linking with:
TGIFF which is hosted by my friends Roseanne and Sue
UFO Busting with my friend Tish