Pumpkins, Crow and more

I guess I need to catch up a bit. Still on a roll to use up more panels. There is still two more blocks left from this panel. Right off I don't remember the size of each block and it is not handy to measure right now. But the whole thing measures 22 x 26. 

First was the orange border, then the flying geese, brown border and the fall leaves orange border.

Wishbone quilting in the white, cross hatch over bird block.

And the back with triangles to put a dowel rod through for hanging.

 Another panel made using two of the blocks in it. There was a couple other parts of another panel that I was trying to work in but no go. Normally my wall hangings turn out taller than wider, not sure how I feel about that yet. However it would look great above someone's side buffet, yes it is in my Etsy shop.

Set some of my favorite fall decorations on my antique treadle machine in the entryway.

We were gone all day Thursday and Friday so no sewing. I was hoping to sew all day on Saturday, nope didn't happen because hubby came in and told me we had to pick our concord grapes. We pick, clean and freeze for making juice later on. There was six gallons of grapes from our small vine, we're happy with that.

This was Sunday's project, it was all pieced so only quilting and binding and getting it listed. The pattern is in a Calico Printworks book that I have had for a long time. 

Linking with Monday Musings, Design Wall Monday and Sew and Tell Monday

 

Finishes and progress made

 Not sure how it got to be Friday already because I didn't get as much done as hoped. But that might be because I kinda took Monday and Tuesday off. Well not completely because I put the finishing touches on two cross stitch projects. 

This first one has been stitched for quite some time. I am glad I waited as I am in love with how I finished. The black background is a black framed canvass from The Dollar Tree, which I just found on Monday when I just happened to stop into the local store. For the cross stitch I sewed the black striped fabric to it and then layered two pieces of batting over a stiff cardboard and wrapped the cross stitch around it. The orange fabric is also wrapped around a piece of cardboard. The glue gun comes in handy to glue all the layers together. A little wired burlap bow finished it off. The pattern was a freebie at one time from Primrose Cottage Designs. 

Another freebie was this pumpkin/crow in a jar from Melisa. She has a whole series of items in jars. A fun and quick stitch that has also been waiting to be finished for a year I think. I used an easel from the Dollar Tree and painted it black before adding the cross stitch which I also wrapped around batting and cardboard. Notice the four acorns I glued onto the bottom, they were from our many oak trees. I am looking forward to decorating with my fall decorations soon.

Wednesday I got back into quilting mode and quilted one of the recent panel wall hangings I was working on Sunday. 

The gray orange triangles on top and bottom of the panel are the result of a Villa Rosa Design little card. I did resize it. October Sky is the name of the pattern. 

Next up was finishing up a sunflower table runner that was in progress for a couple weeks at least.

I need another Cinderella wall hanging to put in the shop. It's quilted but needs binding, I'll do that Friday. 

Linking with Finished or Not, TGIFF, Off the Wall, I quilted this, and Beauties pageant.

Sitting watching TV and here comes a buck looking for a drink from the pond in the backyard just a few feet from the house. And then comes buck #2 a little smaller and buck #3 smaller yet!  We love our wildlife for sure.

What's new on the design wall

 Hello and Happy Monday and last day of August. As we all say where has the time gone!!  On Sunday we didn't have any plans, we were both happy just staying home and working on our own projects. Here is what my day began with.

I picked out three fall panels from the plastic bin I store panels in. The top right one and the bottom left one are on the same panel. I used another piece last year which you can see HERE. Trimming them to a size I knew I could work with. Interviewing fabrics and elements came next. Since I had used these triangle in a square pieces on the one I did last year why not use them again.

Liking the one I did last year the rest of this one was done the same, saved a lot of designing time! Now it is ready to quilt. After that was pieced I moved on to figuring out what to do with the other gray/orange one. That gave me a bit more trouble-thinking time. At first I was going to split that one into two parts for two different wall hangings. But after putzing around for well over an hour and not liking anything I thought of I decided I needed to plan it with using it as a whole instead of splitting. The other gray/orange one got taken down and so did the green panel. A clear wall was needed for my brain to think! 

The first thought was to make a gingham tall pumpkin and a squatty orange one to add on top. I would surround those with other elements like flying geese or HST's and borders to bring them up to size with the panel.  After staring at that for a while it didn't do anything for me. Off to Pinterest for inspiration-do you use Pinterest for that? I do frequently.

That brought me to thinking about a Villa Rosa pattern called October Sky that has had me intrigued for a while. So I bought it and sized my blocks to fit my panel. Easy peasy and I love the look! What do you think? I'll work on that a bit more today. I usually write my post the night before and totally forgot last night.

Right after supper I put the finishing touches on this mini sunflower sampler which is a freebie from our generous friend Melisa! I found the wooden back pieced at the Dollar Store which I painted it black. I mounted the stitched 14 count Aida over batting and a stiff cardboard, hot glued the gold sparkly cording around the sampler, and hot glued the whole thing to the black wood. Stay tuned to a couple more finishes soon.

Linking with Sew and Tell Monday, Design Wall Monday and Monday Musings.

Saturday our 5 year old granddaughter spent part of her day with us, always so fun. While she was here we looked out the deck door and saw this guy sitting on the deck! We frequently have bunches of them come through the yard and snatch a drink at the pond-he had his friends with him.

Colorful Design Wall

 By the end of Wednesday this is what my design wall looked like. I love the splash of color!

Sunday was a quick finish by binding the plaid donation quilt. I used a tan birdhouse fabric and another tan for the backing.

A large stipple to keep it soft for cuddles. 

Monday I quilted this D9P(disappearing nine patch). During the week before I worked on piecing it in between other projects. A few of the nine patches were put together and then I got busy sewing the rest together and before long I had a flimsy. Working away at the mound of blue from the 90s and making a donation quilt is very satisfying. This makes #6 for this year. 

In the nine patch I placed the lighter blues on the corners, a light print with blue hearts in the very center and the rest are 4 navy blue. For some reason these squares were cut at 4.5", no idea why!!

Look at what I used for the backing! These 4 panel squares of birds were given to me in a pile of other fabrics including the blue stripe here.  So I combined then for the backing.

Wednesday I pieced all three of the pieces you see on the first photo of this post. Most of the parts were already cut out so it was fast piecing and then leaf blocks were all pieced too. The colorful squares for their borders were all strip pieced and I used my 2.5" strip cutter to cut them into sections. 

Thursday I quilted the square one, got the photos and listed it in my shop.

I'll be quilting the other two soon. 

Linking with TGIFF, Finished or Not Friday, I quilted this, Off The Wall and Beauties Pageant. Hope to go check out all the great inspiration there. Sunday I will link at Oh Scrap!

Our apple tree looks like it had Christmas ornaments the way the apples were hanging on this one side of the tree!

Scrap quilts

Spring Lake is now quilted and bound. 

My fourth donation quilt this year.

Earlier this month I shared that I was trying to do the leader ender thing again.  In the past it seemed I never stuck to it, I would forget to use them even when they sat right next to the sewing machine. This time I did better but then it got to a point I just wanted to get the quilt done. It was no longer my leader ender it became my priority. It's been pieced for a week, Saturday I pieced the backing and quilted it. While you are reading this I might be working on the binding;) This is my fifth donation quilt so far this year.  I'll show you more in a few days.

I'll be sharing this scrappy goodness at Oh Scrap! on Sunday.  

Monday it will be shared at Sew and Tell, Design Wall Monday and Monday Musings.

For my slow stitching Sunday  I hope to be able to finish up this little guy.

 

Productive week continues

 I am really pleased with all I got done this week. In Wednesday's post you saw a glimpse of my design wall in process projects. They are all done!  It's no secret I love working with panels. These two had bits from different panels that I added elements to to make them unique.

The quilting was fun and even tho' most of it is with a ruler it went fast. The diagonal lines on the crow and sunflower block almost make it look like rain. 

The crow and sunflower came from the same panel.

To bring them up to the size I needed for adding the rest I made six flying geese that are 2x4 finished. Then I needed that piece to be wider so I added a skinny white sashing to each side of the geese. 

The four little blocks at the top were from a totally different panel yet they go together so nicely with the crow and sunflower. I have several more of those little ones left from more panels. They will get included in other pieces eventually. 

The next wall hanging, Welcome Harvest, has parts from different panels also and they play well together too. The words are from one panel, each letter of the word is printed on an cream color fabric. The three prints in the middle are all from another panel. All I had to do was add the checkerboard on the sides of the apple barrel one and then sash and border in a grunge looking black/gray fabric. I originally thought I would add another colorful border but once the black was on it didn't need anything more.

More ruler work on this wall hanging too. It just scream for it so I listened;)

More diagonal lines

The word Harvest I did with my channel locks since it was going horizontal and that worked really slick. I had never tried that.  I first checked it out to make sure it would give me straight lines across, I had it basted on correctly:) It wouldn't take much to be off just a tad and not have straight lines within that panel and look goofy.

I finished up twin pumpkin table runners but no photos were taken at the time of writing this on Thursday night.

Hoping to see you all over at Finished or Not, TGIFF, I Quilted This, Off The Wall, Beauties Pageant

UFO and new starts

 I snuck a donation UFO quilt in the quilting queue and got it finished up and folded away. It will be given to my DIL later this year for her group to hand out. This makes the third so far this year. Many more to come I hope, there are a few more tops in the pile waiting their turn.

The tumbler flimsy was pieced over the winter. 

Somewhere along the line I put this wide stripe in the donation fabric tub. It was the perfect size for this  48x60 lap quilt. 

My design wall has wall hangings in progress...

And the piecing is done now.  All parts of four different panels leftover from previous projects. Sometimes the panels just have too many pieces that I don't want to put all into one item.

Let's all hop over to Jennifer's Wednesday Wait Loss party.