Tis the season for pumpkins and stars

 This little wall hanging was started in the fall 2019.  First all those little stars, then the rest of the piecing fell into place quickly. And then it sat and sat while I was inspired and pretty soon it was 2020 and it got shoved to the back, I wouldn't need it for several months.  

Then the August OMG rolls around and I thought that would be the perfect time to finish it up.  I quilted it quickly the first part of the month and then well it sat and sat again and I didn't make the deadline.  All I had to do was the binding and applique.  I even had the appliques all cut out.

Finally I got really tired of it staring at me every time I walked into my room. So this past week it was finished up rather quickly one afternoon.  The pumpkin is flannel and the sunflower and leaves are wool. All fused on and then machine stitched on. 

I absolutely love how it came out and really wanted to keep it myself. 

But I really didn't need another fall wall hanging.  It was really fun to make and I could do it again, so I listed it in my Etsy shop.  It was only in there a day and it sold!  I am happy it is going to a repeat customer so I know she loves my work and will really enjoy it on her wall.  I measures 24"x 23".  Here is how it would have looked if I had kept it. The pattern designer is Me and My stitches.

Linking with these fun Friday parties:

Finished or Not

Can I get a Whoop Whoop

TGIFF

Peacock Party

UFO Busting

To Do Tuesday #33

 Time is flying right by, we welcomed fall in today.  And it's the warmest day we have had in weeks at 80 sunny degrees!  We even managed a bike ride today, after I did some sewing.  Then I picked some apples from our tree and hubby made us an apple pie! 

On to the goals for last week...

1. Quilt two Valentine runners that I had pieced earlier this spring. DONE

2. Piece and quilt another fall leaves runner. DONE

3. Go to the fabric moving sales. DONE

The sales started at 10am and it said no early sales.  I arrived at 10:06 and there were people galore, cars lined up for two blocks on both sides of the street. Everyone had masks and we were outside.  And people were already leaving with armfuls!  We couldn't help ourselves at $2 a yard and it was nice fabric.  Here is my haul, as you can see there was lots of fall fabrics to pick from.  I was wishing for more reds for backing of holiday runners.  But at least I am stocked up for the rest of this fall and probably next fall too. That is 43 yards of fabric in these two piles! But seriously I could have bought twice that, but I put the brakes on, haha. 

So I met my goals and managed to do a few more things, one I posted about earlier today for the Hello Fall blog hop in this post.  There was enough time left to make one of my Starstruck runners. I have a tutorial for it on my tutorial page. 

And not quilting related but hubby and I made salsa for the very first time.  We used a premix of Mrs. Wages salsa mix and added tomatoes, green peppers and onions.  It is delicious!!  

Have I made you hungry talking about salsa and apple pie?  Did you want to see the apple pie too;)  The apples are from our own tree.  We might have put a little ice cream on our slices too. 

Be sure to pop over to Roseanne and Sue's blog to check up on all our blog friends goals this week for To Do Tuesday. I am linking up over there. 

OMG- wait I didn't set any goals for next week, how about make 3 table runners and maybe start a wall hanging. 

Checked Pumpkin-Hello Fall blog hop

 Hello to all my followers, and welcome if you have stopped in for the first time.  Today is my day on the Hello Fall blog hop hosted by Carla at Creatin' in the Sticks.  Carla always puts on a fun hop and I love to join in!

There are so many things I love about fall, the leaves, pumpkins, scarecrows, gourds and all the gorgeous fall colors.  But this year instead of all the fun colors I decided I wanted to add a buffalo checked pumpkin in black, white and gray to my decorating.  

If you happen to follow Jeanna at Slammin' the Screen Door you have seen some of her cross stitch projects she has going.  I used to cross stitch every winter, but haven't done it in years.  Enter Jeanna and her projects and I kept thinking about doing it again.  Gee do I really need to go down that rabbit hole again?  But then I found this cute checked pumpkin and I kept thinking about it for several weeks and Jeanna said that we should make it together.  So when Carla announced this hop I thought, why not!!  I mean I had all the supplies still in a bin.  So I bought the pattern and started and darn I couldn't wait for the evenings to roll around so I could sit and stitch!  It was small enough that I knew I could finish it and it was perfect for the blog hop.  But I think Jeanna got busy with life and she might not have started hers just yet. 

After the cross stitch was done I trimmed it to 7 1/2" and cut the black polka dot fabric at 2" wide. It looked like it needed some additional color so I added the orange flange.  The flange was cut to 1" wide and folded in half.

I then sandwiched the flange in between the cross stitch aida cloth and the polka dots and sewed with a 1/4" seam, adding it to the two sides.  Then repeat for the top and bottom.

I chose this fun orange BOO print for the back to make this into a little pillow.  The back was cut the same size as the front and sewed all around the four sides being sure to leave an opening to stuff it.  Because I wanted the cross stitch center to be the only stuffed part I stitched in the ditch between the aida cloth and the orange flange (leaving another opening so I could stuff it).  After lightly stuffing with small scraps of batting I sewed both openings closed.

This cute little pillow will look great with my Hocus Pocus wall hanging when I get it done. 

One more glamor shot since I picked up pumpkins this past week. I see a little bite mark, think that a squirrel has been up on the porch having a little snack!!

Won't you please join me in cheering on all of the bloggers who are participating in this hop which just started yesterday.  Here is a line up.  You won't want to miss all the great ideas!!

Monday, September 21st

Just Let Me Quilt

Websterquilt
VroomansQuilts
Karen's Korner
Elizabeth Coughlin Designs
QuiltFabrication.com
Karrin’s Crazy World
Seams To Be Sew
The Joyful Quilter
Kathleen McMusing 

Tuesday, September 22nd

MooseStashQuilting
Quilting Gail
that fabric feeling
Vicki’s Crafts and Quilting (You are here)
Kathy's Kwilts and More
Pieceful Thoughts of My Quilting Life
 Sew Many Yarns
Sunshine in the Attic
Becky’s adventures in quilting and travel
Food for Thought

Wednesday, September 23rd

Quiltscapes
Ms P Designs USA
Stitchin At Home
Just Because Quilts
beaquilter
Patchwork Breeze
Selinaquilts
Lily Patch Quilts
Not Afraid Of Color
Quilting & Learning: What a Combo!

Thursday, September 24th

Creatin' in the Sticks
Quilt Schmilt
Bumbleberry Stitches
Samelia’s Mum
Life in the Scrapatch
Storied Quilts
Songbird Designs
Quiltifications
Words & Stitches

for the love of geese

Linking with Midweek Makers and Wednesday Wait Loss

Gnome Table Runner

There has been a whole lot of Gnome activity around the net.  Every where you look it seems.  Now I will admit that I just haven't been a Gnome lover and then I met Wendy, LOL  Yep, she loves them as did her mom. Wendy has made some cute and they started to grow on me.  And then last year my friend made me one to sit on my shelf using a mop as a beard.  And factor in all the ones I have seen on the net and well let me introduce you to my very own Gnome table runner. 

With the help of Wendy this is what I drew up.  I think he is pretty stinkin' cute.  My usual is to piece the table runner, quilt it and then applique, I stuck to my usual with simple quilting in order to spend the time on the applique.  

I stitched in the ditch around the small black border before stippling.  The quilting was all done on my Nolting Funquilter.  The applique on my Janome Skyline 7. 

This runner is 100% cotton quilting fabrics except for his beard, which is felt.  It was fun to work on another squirrel;)

The white background fabric has a light gray very faint design of pine needles and pinecones with a bit of sparkle that gives this a magical appearance. He is now listed in my Etsy shop. 

Linking with , NTT, Free Motion Mavericks, Creative Compulsions, Put Your Foot Down

To Do Tuesday #32

How did we all do on our goals for the week?  If you head over to HomeSewnByUs blog you can check in on every one.  

I felt like I didn't do a lot but was always working away.  How does that happen, perhaps it is because I didn't finish a lot or maybe I should just say not as much as I would have liked.  I did finish my two table runners for orders so that feels good.  Another gal saw the 17" square leaf table runner that I did earlier this month and she wanted one 23" square.  It wasn't any problem to do by adding the pretty fall colored squares around the edge.  I really think some day I need to make myself one of these!  

The second table runner I just finished yesterday.  It's from my Snow Dudes pattern.

On Sunday I posted about the fun I had piecing a Halloween wall hanging for myself.

There was one more finish that I want to share with you in it's own post.  It's a cutie!  Let's say Thursday I will tell you about it. Now that's just a tease isn't it!

This next week, well I want to quilt two Valentine table runners, and make another long fall leaves runner.  And I am going to a fabric estate sale on Saturday where fabric is $2 a yard!  Oh boy, oh boy, how much will I purchase, I shouldn't get any but you know I will!!!  And then I hear there is another fabric sale just down the block, I haven't heard what their prices will be but I'll check it out.  

Linking up at To Do Tuesday

Hocus Pocos wall hanging

 I have been seeing lots of Halloween quilts using the checked orange or black for the pumpkins.  And I have been wanting to make one so bad.  Friday afternoon I finished up a table runner for my Etsy shop and I had time to play.  I had just been telling my buddy, Wendy, that I needed a squirrel to come visit my house so it seemed like the perfect time to start my Halloween wall hanging.  

The pattern I am using is called Hocus Pocus from Primrose Cottage Quilts. No affiliation but she has a lot of cute quilts!!  

After digging out the right shades of orange tone on tone scraps and then the black Halloween scraps I used my Accuquilt 2.5" die to cut the squares.  The background white with black dots seemed perfect for this.  I built the pumpkin blocks on Friday afternoon and Saturday I built the star blocks and put it all together.  I love it and I love that all the fabrics were in my stash!

I hope to get it quilted this week and ready to hang on my wall on Oct 1st.  So glad I let that squirrel in my house!!  Who knew squirrels could be sew fun;)  I haven't had a lot of time to let loose and play and make something for myself so it felt great. 

Linking with Oh Scrap

To Do Tuesday #31

I guess I showed you yesterday some of my accomplishments for the week. If you missed them you can see them HERE. But there are a couple I didn't show. Here they are.  S swirl table runner in Christmas fabrics.

A reversed S swirl runner in different Christmas fabrics.

 And a fall fabric one too.

And I finished up the sweater for an order.  

So it was a good week.  I had a few days to stay home all day long and that meant sewing and knitting.  Well I did do a little baking also, two batches of zucchini bread some to put in the freezer.  I had to use this 7 pound zucchini from our garden didn't I.  We have been picking most of them small to slice into our lettuce salad but a couple of these guys just got too big while we were busy with other things. So we left him get bigger, LOL  I like to grate it and freeze for winter baking. 

And we have had lots of cucumbers and the tomatoes are really producing too.  Anyone have an easy salsa recipe to share?  I have never done any but might need to try. 

This week I have two more table runner orders to finish up and then perhaps do a few more runners for Etsy.  And of course I'll be working on the large order of 14 table runners in between.  She is not needing them for a couple months.  I have an idea for a Gnome runner that I want to get going on since they are so popular.  What are you working on this week?  

Linking up with To Do Tuesday

Amazing things can happen

Back in July, while we were on vacation, something amazing happened.  You know I have two Etsy shops, one for my finished quilted items and another for my patterns (which are only .pdf's).  Links to both shops are on the right side bar.   I wasn't checking my pattern shop daily, I mean we were on vacay;)  But one afternoon I checked and there were a few messages from customers who were having difficulty downloading their purchased pattern.  Upon further investigation on my part, one pattern was selling tons!  This one, The Snow Dudes.  I am so glad I checked that day so I didn't keep anyone waiting to download their pattern.  It was only a few hours into the rush of buyers.

This has never happened before, after helping those people who were having problems I asked a few of them how they happened to find my shop.  A couple responded that on some FB group someone posted their finished runner and linked to my shop as they were all so excited about it!!  But it seemed they didn't know which group, so I never discovered how it all happened.  I would love to have heard all the chatter!!!! So within a few days over 80 patterns sold of The Snow Dudes!  There were more that trickled in but I stopped counting at 80.  I am still flabbergasted:0

Flash forward into early August and I got an email from a gal who works for a quilt shop in Texas called Fabric Fanatics.  They wanted to know if they could purchase my patterns and make kits up.  What, another amazing thing.  But to be honest I have never done anything like that before and wasn't sure how to approach it.  But I talked to another gal who has worked with them in this manner and after that I felt good about it.  So they bought 30 patterns consisting of several different ones.  

Now September is off to a great start!  An Etsy customer purchased 3 runners on Friday and then asks me if I would consider taking an order for 14 runners!!  She has two nieces getting married later this year and wants to give them each 7 runners with various Holiday themes.  Holy cow!  Why yes indeed I accepted the order!  I have two of them done already. 

Thank you for letting me share my amazing news with you!  Happy Labor Day my quilty friends.  I will be doing a little sewing and a little baking today.  I have two table runners on my design wall for today.  And soon I will be working on my idea for Hello Fall blog hop which starts September 21st.  And then I am participating in From The Heart blog hop in October also. 

Linking with Design Wall Monday, and Monday Making.

Square table topper

Every once in a while I get a request from my Etsy customers.  Today's finish is for a return customer who purchased a rectangular leaf runner previously.  She wanted a coordinating piece that was 17" square.

This was easy enough to do.  Lucky for me I already had some leaves all paper pieced.  By placing four with the stems pointing to the middle and adding a 1.5" sashing in between the blocks all I needed to add was a 1.75" border around the square.  Ta Da a 17" square topper was ready to quilt.

In each leaf I quilt a freehand design that brings out the shape of the leaf even more.  Then a little ruler work in the sashing and border was all this little piece needed to be complete. Even pieces this size get quilted on my Nolting 17" FunQuilter long arm machine. 

A rust colored backing and black binding pulls it all together.  My customer loves it and I do too.  I was thinking perhaps I should make another for the shop.  In the meantime another customer saw it and wants one in a 23" size.  I think I know just what it needs to achieve that size. Hope you all have a safe and healthy holiday weekend. I hope to be quilting.

Linking with Long Arm Learning, Finished or Not Friday, and Can I Get a Whoop Whoop

To Do Tuesday #30

As predicted I didn't get much done.  Hubby had his surgery on Thursday to put a screw in the broken bone in his foot.  So Wednesday was the pre surgery DR appt. and since he can't drive for 6 weeks I will be doing that.  Thursday we were up at 5:30, be at the hospital at 7 for a surgery that doesn't take place til 10:30(but only takes 6 minutes to perform) is crazy in my opinion.  Hurry up and wait is what the whole day amounted to.  I was exhausted after that.  I know hubby was too.  We finally got home at 3pm and we only live 15 minutes away!   So continue to wear the boot and crutches and no weight on the foot for six weeks.

My other accomplishments this week, non quilt related, was to learn how to use the tractor mower and mow some of the lawn.  I will not mow the hills/slopes though.  And then with DH's supervision I managed to unhook the side by side from the camper floor and get it backed out.  It's tight, not much room to spare. And then after that it was backing it into a crowded garage without taking out the garage door or hitting his car!!!  I succeeded!  But the biggie was getting the fifth wheel hooked up and driven out to the dealer for them to fix some factory goof ups. Again I succeeded all with DH's help of course.

So in the quilting arena this week there wasn't much done... Two of these guys, if you look at the border fabrics you will see they are different.











And one poinsettia runner quilted and bound.  I had the flowers all done from last winter.

So this week is going to be all about getting those orders done.  Do you feel fall in the air, we sure have the past few days, it's cooler and you just feel it coming.  

Thanks to Roseanne and Sue for hosting the To Do Tuesday linky party each week, I am running over there to link up. 

To Do Tuesday #29

I have been MIA for a couple of Tuesdays. We were out on a little adventure, more on that later.

So where did we leave off, oh yes I was making the covers for the camp chairs we carry in the ATV.  I got both of them done in two days.  Of course the first one was the hardest since I had no pattern. But with DH's input and my sister in laws photos of the ones she made, we came up with a good one we think.  These are made from waterproof canvas I bought from Amazon.  They close up pretty good by using wide velcro, also from amazon. We hope they will keep our chairs from getting all dusty or wet.

I was happy to make more masks for my daughter in law since she is in the office and has clients coming in now.  Our son also asked for a black mask.  I made him one all black and one a dark gray.  They love how these fit.  He has been working from home since March but was going to a meeting with others and needed one.  He said he noticed that everyone else's masks didn't seem to fit them nearly as good as his:)  I'll be happy to make him more if he needs.

I had taken some sewing along with me on the adventure, but I didn't get a lot done.  I started making leaf blocks, you don't get far when you don't pack all the supplies/fabric:(  But we did get a lot of ATVing in with lots and lots of mud puddles to hit:0  And we did some relaxing kayaking. This was our view all week.

However, on the last afternoon at camp my hubby stepped into a pothole at the campsite and rolled his foot.  Hmmm I think he needed to go to ER but he insisted we go home the next day as planned. So he hobbled around and we got the kayaks and ATV in the toy hauler and he was able to drive home even though it was his right foot.  With a shoe on for support it was tolerable.  I was fretting I was going have to pull a 40 ft camper home.   I finally convinced him to go to the clinic here.  They said to go straight to the walk in orthopedic clinic, ha we didn't even know there was such a thing!  The X ray revealed he broke the 5th metatarsal bone.  They gave him a boot and crutches. Summer is over and Fall is going to be very long!  The Dr yesterday told him surgery is optional because of where the break is. But with surgery it will heal quicker so I think that is where he is leaning. He has to decide in a couple days. They were thinking surgery on Friday perhaps.  We got his far in life with out either of us, or our kids breaking a bone so that part is fortunate.

So I will be chauffeur for the next several weeks and gofer...go for this and go for that, LOL I don't know how much I will get done.  I do have two orders to fill for Etsy and knit a sweater for Cheri for sure.  Anything else is icing on the cake;)

Linking with To Do Tuesday.  And hoping you all had a great week!

A new border treatment

I needed some sewing therapy which led to longarm therapy.  It's the time of year that I need to keep up with making snowman runners for my Etsy shop.  So I whipped up one of my own designs called Through the Window.  You can find him in my Etsy pattern shop.

Using a tone on tone dark gray for the background gives me opportunity to dress up that outside border.  As I was going to look through some quilting books to get inspiration for something new I spied a drawing I drew on the bulletin board.  When seeing something online I often draw a quick sketch so I won't forget.  However, I wish I had written down whose idea it was as I like to give credit where credit is due.  If anyone knows please tell me!!

This design does involve a ruler all the way through, a special ruler so your hopping foot doesn't jump over it. The ruler I prefer to use with my longarm for straight line quilting is Deloa Jones' castle ruler.  I love how the design looks but it takes time as does all ruler work.

 I knew the border would take time so I kept the other parts of quilting simple with stipple meander or loops.  I used Glide thread in gray and a red.

I'll be linking up with Rebecca for the Long Arm Learning Party that she hosts every Tuesday.  It's a party for well learning from each other about quilting.  Share a post about something you finished, a new tool or if you are having trouble with something.