Sunflower and Holly

 Often when I make something with a seasonal fabric, I might as well pick the next season and make one for that also while the pattern is fresh in my mind.  First up is a pretty sunflower fabric with a  coordinating gold and green.

The quilting on the star portion of this table topper was all ruler work with one start and one stop on my longarm.  Next came the smallish stipple in the neutral background and straight lines in the outer border.

And the backing.

Picking out the Christmas fabrics was easy, I started with the holly fabric and added a green and red. This was the first time to use the white with green, red and silver polka dot fabric. I think it came out great.

The quilting is the same as the sunflower one. This is a pattern by Anka's Treasure called Rising Star, in her Angles with Ease book.

Found a piece just large enough in the stash for the backing.  

The cross stitch project has moved along also.

Our wild black raspberry season has come to the end, but I sure loved being able to fill 7 sandwich size zip baggies and put in the freezer. But first I made a batch of 24 muffins, yummy!

This year I decided to try planting cucumber seeds in a flower pot of the deck. The three plants are growing really well. I took this a week ago and it has really vined out even more since. And I have several baby cuc's on it, four of them are almost 4" long!  I can hardly wait to eat them:)

It's Friday so you know I'll be linking up with other creators at Off The Wall, TGIFF, Finished or Not Friday and Freemotion Mavericks.

Summer and Fall

 Hello Summer is a cross stitch from Primrose Cottage, love their designs. Diann and I had been talking of what to stitch next, she mentioned she was going to do this one and I thought it is the perfect timing. So I jumped in fingers first:)  A week ago I picked out the thread and then Monday started stitching and every night since except for last night. I only stitch in the evenings while watching TV.

During the day time I sew.  I figure it is time to work up a few fall panels for the shop.

And the current one I am working on.  I'll go into more detail about each when I get them quilted.

Linking with Slow Stitching Sunday, Sew and Tell Monday, Design Wall Monday, Monday Musings.

Braids and Banners

I had such fun making the two teal braided table runners that I checked out other batiks that I could do in another color scheme.  From the stash came these yellow and gray batiks that worked up nicely. They did give me problems when it came to photographing them though, the grays became to blue. I tried different times of days, different lighting tricks, the close ups became the best colors.

  

Almost quilted the same as the teal ones, but I just did straight lines instead of ribbon candy in the yellow sashings.  There were a few more things accomplished this week, but I'll save those for another post.

It won't be long and people will be shopping for new fall decorations. So I used my sunflower wall hanging pattern to make this banner. You can hang it on a wall, a door or just display on a table. Lots of applique which I do after quilting the piece. It's a fun one to make. If you want to see my seasonal patterns you can find them in my Etsy pattern shop HERE.

Lastly I finally got this one listed in my quilting Etsy shop! I made it last year and never got all the photos I needed in order to list it. If you are in need of a new Halloween banner you can find it HERE. I used several Accuquilt dies to make this, pumpkins, cat, and bat. A circle for the moon and 1.5" strip cutter for the checkerboards. Again lots of applique, I have a setting on my Janome Skyline 7 to make the zigzag for the applique jut right.

It's Friday and that means lots of fun linky parties to check out. I'll be over at...

Freemotion Mavericks

Off The Wall

Finished or Not Friday

 

Scrappy stars

 This scrappy stars quilt crossed the finish line almost one year to the date of it starting!  No I didn't plan that at all. As I was getting ready to write this post I thought I would do a quick search of old blog posts to see if I could find out when I started it. You can read that post HERE if you want to.

It's been done and waiting for pic's for a week. Too much rain to get it outside for photos, and to dark in the house to show up, so I waited it out. All scraps from the scrap bin stash. The burgundy backing is a curiosity as I do not know where that came from but it was in the donation quilt fabric cupboard.

I have done a version of this at least once before. 

A quick stipple and it is done. I am getting quite a nice stack of quilts to give to my DIL's church group to hand out. 

Linking with Oh Scrap!, Sew and Tell Monday, Design Wall Monday, Monday Musing, and NTT

A little hand stitching is happening in the evenings here and there. This little piece was a freebie from Primrose Cottage which I started last winter and didn't get far before I wasn't in the mood to cross stitch anymore. Set it aside and picked it back up a few weeks ago.  Now to decide how best to finish it. Linking to Slow Stitching Sunday

This week I am going to be busy quilting runners and wall hangings, stay tuned for their finishes.  What is on your agenda?

Patriotic Parade #2

Happy 4th of July to all my U.S. followers!

 Let the second Patriotic Parade begin.  Another favorite design to piece is my reversed S swirl runner. Fun and easy to make using a 10 degree wedge.

This is a pattern from GE Designs in one of her books.

A ten degree round wedge in red, white and blues.

Using a 60 degree diamond ruler and a pattern by Krista Moser I created this topper easily.

And one last one.

Let's go see some more inspiration at these Linky Parties:

Finished or Not Friday, Free Motion Mavericks, TGIFF, and Off The Wall

Patriotic Parade

 During the last couple months I have worked on a few patriotic table runners. I wanted to save them to show you during our July 4th week. For those of you in the U.S. this is Independence Day week.

This is one of my original designs and it is a favorite for me and my customers. 

Same design with different fabrics.

And even yet another in different fabrics.

Getting creative with the backing.

I hope you will come back on Friday to see even more patriotic table runners!  

Linking with Wednesday Linky parties at Wednesday Wait Loss, Put Your Foot Down

Delectable

 In between working on donation quilts I needed something smaller for quicker finishes. Delectable Mountain table runners to the rescue, three of them in fact!  First up was a teal one as I still had teal fabrics on my mind after making two of the teal braid runners. 

A beautiful green/purple batik was perfect for a fall runner. These measure 15x47.5". The quilting design I chose to do was freehand feather clusters from a Patsy Thompson DVD which I have had for years. It's an easy but so effective design.

I have waited a long time figuring out exactly what to do with this fabric and it was perfect for a backing. Do you buy fabric without knowing what pattern you will use it with? I do sometimes;)

And this green batik will be great as a year round runner, or spring when all things start growing again, and even for a fall runner. It's very versatile with more bang for your buck! I used the same background fabric for these last two.

And a nice green piece for the backing.  Have you ever made a delectable mountain runner or quilt? It's pretty easy. I used Bonnie Hunters scrappy mountain majesty block tutorial for mine. These three runners are now listed in my Etsy shop.

How about joining me at these linky parties:

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

Jelly Roll quilt

 I am tickled to have another UFO finish to share with you. Things have just aligned right for me to finish up several quilts that have been waiting, some longer than others. This one is going on two years old I think. It sat patiently waiting to be quilted and bound so it could go give someone a quilty hug. 

The pattern is Ridiculously Easy Jelly Roll quilt by Michelle at From Bolt to Beauty It really is easy and fun to make. The backing is fleece given to me by a friend so I thought it fitting to use it in a donation quilt. An allover stipple kept it soft. The pattern says 58x70 for a lap quilt, I forgot to measure before folding it up and putting in the pile. The batiks were from a very long time ago, I was going to make a quilted jacket out of it but as time went on I knew I didn't want to make another jacket. So into a quilt it went and I am glad to have this done. 

Friday linky parties...Off The Wall, Finished or Not, Beauties Pageant, Free Motion Mavericks and TGIFF

We had tornado sirens go off twice yesterday afternoon, we personally didn't see any activity. However we did get over 3" of rain, it's still coming down lightly. 

I am glad I snapped this photo of my Calla Lilies the day before as they are now drooping with the rain.

And Wednesday morning I was greeted by these cuties! They are only a few feet from the front of our house. They are cute but darn it when they eat our lilies and hostas I am not so fond of them then!

Blue and Mauve scraps

 Yes I still have blue and mauve scraps lingering in my stash. These are leftovers from the days I used to make bunnies, country dolls etc. Little by little I am trying to use those fabrics up. Making donation quilts is a good way to do that. 

This may look like the popular jelly roll race quilt. However these strips were cut into 4" wide pieces. And I cut and sewed row by row instead. 

I kept the size around 41" so  it would fit on a 44" fabric and I was able to use more scraps for the backing.  You might wonder if I used up all the blue and mauve scraps, the answer is NOT! But at least I used some, LOL.  A quick allover stipple on the longarm and a blue binding and this quilt is ready to donate.  It's a hot and humid weekend here so it's a good day to stay inside with AC and quilt away:)

Linking with Oh Scrap!, Monday Musings and Sew and Tell Monday.