Three finishes and a start

More fall Rising Star table toppers. This one uses a beautiful fall leaves fabric with a coordinating one in the same colors plus the accent of green. I thought about using an orange accent but thought it would be a bit too much orange and blend in more than I wanted.

A nice homespun for the backing.

Another sunflower one was needed but using a different sunflower fabric. The pattern is from Anka's Treasure in her book Angles with Ease. They are about 27" across.

A gold backing fabric.

And Hello Summer is finished into a little pillow! I have a bin of lace and trims from doll clothes making days so I went there in search of something that might work. This is a design from Primrose Cottage. They used a pink cloth to stitch on, I didn't have any but I had white 14ct. Aida. To make mine magically turn into pink I used a watercolor pencil and rubbed it over the white Aida cloth and wet a stiff brush and brushed it over and over. I had never tried this before, it was an experiment that worked!

And the start is another little cross stitch piece so I have something to work on in the evening while watching TV.

 

Linking with Friday linky parties... 

Beauties Pageant

Finished or Not Friday

Freemotion Mavericks

Off The Wall

TGIFF

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. Linking up with Slow Sunday Stitching.

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.

On a Quest...

To use up a fat quarter bundle, that is what I am on a quest for.  These pretty fabrics have just been hanging around too long.  They started off as a quilt and then the leftovers (aka scraps) just sat there.  Next came a table runner that I showed you on Friday, you can see that HERE.  It is now time to use them up or at least get close to using them up!

This one has a totally different look, nothing like the one I showed you Friday.  But it's from the same pattern book,  Anka's Treasure's book called On The Run Again.  I confess I did go out and acquire a few more fabrics, just to use up the FQ bundle...hmmm does that even make sense to buy more to use up some, LOL.  Oh the mind of a quilter😂😂.

The two polka dot fabrics were purchased and am I ever glad I did.  At the time I wasn't intending on using them both in the same runner.  But after quilting it I grabbed the solid navy to use as a binding and then spied the navy with white polka dot and bam! It's perfect for it😋

An allover quilting of lettuce leaf feathers around a swirl seemed just right for this one.  I used a light gray Glide thread and an 80/20 batting. 

Here comes the next runner with the same fabrics.  Also from On The Run Again.  I mean while I had the book out I might as well see what else I can whip up.

This one just seemed to need a solid navy to pull it all together.  Although the three runners have all used the same FQ bundle fabrics they all seem so different don't they?  It's been fun seeing them come together.  Guess what, there will be more as I still have fabric left!!!  This bundle is really getting stretched out.

I love that I had the perfect backing in the stash, both of these used the same one.  Linking my scrappy projects to Oh Scrap, and Design Wall Monday.

Wishing you all a Happy Easter!

A Squirrel came into my studio!!

Okay not a real squirrel, but one of those that just pops in to our daily life and says make me!!  I obliged right away.  And you know what, it felt great to do something new and different.  It all started when I was trying to get inspiration from Pinterest and one of Heather Mulder Peterson's table runner patterns popped in the mix and I checked out the link and it lead me to her pattern book.  Guess what, I already owned that one!  It's her On The Run Again book with a bunch of table runner designs.  

I always find it interesting to see a before and after quilting photo, in my haste to quilt it I forgot to take a total before one but here is part of it after it was pinned onto my quilting frame.

 

Stitching in the ditch around the white sections that bordered the aqua polka dots is where I began. Next came wishbones in the star points and at the same time the stipple in the white. 

The flower in the white hexagon center. I marked from point to point with a purple air erasable marker and used a circle template to stitch it. 

Isn't it cute!

And before long it was all done.  It's been a while since I took the time to really enjoy the custom quilting process. When deciding which fabrics to choose I looked at my fat quarters to see what I might use up.  These prints were part of a bundle that was used in a quilt at one time. I still have lots left and I am going to try another pattern from her book with them.  I just happened to have that polka dot in the stash too. That is almost gone now so I will have to use something else to coordinate. 

Gosh I am so glad that little squirrel interrupted my day!  Have any squirrels visited you lately?  

 

Linking up with:

Finished or Not Friday

TGIFF

Peacock Party

Off The Wall Fridays

Beauty Pageant

It's Cool To Be Square blog hop

Being a part of a blog hop is always so much fun don't you think?  So when Carol from Just Let Me Quilt announced she was having  "Its Cool To Be Square" blog hop I jumped on the bandwagon.   It kinda happened as I was just starting this quilt back in March.  And it just so happened it involved squares.  So it was meant to be:)








I had purchased a bundle of 10 fat quarters at the Minnesota Quilt show last year.  And it has been staring at me and begging me to use them in a quilt.  I just hadn't figured out just what quilt and then to find a pattern that needed only 10 fat quarters.  As I do from time to time, I went through a box of patterns and found one that would work great if I substituted the light colored fat quarter in that bundle.  Of course that meant going through my bright fun colors of stash to get one that would look like it fit in.  See that pretty teal border print with the purple polka dots, yep that's the one I substituted and then decided to use it for the border and binding also.

The pattern is called Sweet Pea and is from Anka's Treasures.  It is a fast pattern to make up and fun looking at.  While her pattern has you applique flowers onto the quilt I decided I didn't want to do that.  I like the simplicity of the 'cool' squares and it lets the prints shine through. 

I quilted the whimsical all over freehand flowers with this teal thread.  It's spring I guess and I am stuck in flower mode.

Then when it came time to quilt it a couple weeks ago, I started panicking because I don't usually have a lot of big yardage pieces for backings on hand.  The one I originally picked wasn't big enough and I didn't have time to do a pieced backing.  So I dug a little deeper and wowzers I came up with the perfect piece, the right size, the right color, bingo!!!

It measures in at 56"x 66".  A great size to cuddle up and read a book or watch TV with. 

Thanks Carol for hosting and letting me be part of this blog hop!   Here are the links to the other bloggers participating.

May 18

Creatin' in the Sticks

Life in the Scrapatch

Day Brook Designs

Songbird Designs

The Darling Dogwood

Kathleen McMusing

Quilting Gail

May 19

MooseStashQuilting

Beaquilter

Quilt In A Not-Shell

Elizabeth Coughlin Designs

Seams To Be Sew

Daughters of Dorinda

Kathy's Kwilts and More

May 20

Ms P Designs USA

Selina Quilts

Karen's Korner

Just Because Quilts

Becky’s Adventures in Quilting and Travel

Sew Many Yarns

May 21

Scrapdash

Websterquilt

Quilt Schmilt

Vicki’s Crafts and Quilting (that's me)

May 22

Just Let Me Quilt

Vroomans Quilts

Patchouli Moon Studio

Den syende himmel

Quilt Fabrication

Samelia's Mum

Linking with:

Put Your Foot Down

Can I get a Whoop Whoop

TGIFF

Finished or Not 

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

Scrappy trees

Whenever I can make something with my scrappy strings I am just delighted!  We all have those leftover strips from projects be it from a binding or a sashing.  And I have a ton of them.   

A couple of years ago Heather Mulder Peterson was having a quilt a long using these tree blocks from her book Angles With Ease 2.  We were making scrappy trees-I used my strings in various widths.  

Sew the strips together, cut triangles using her special triangular ruler, add side half triangles and the trunk.  And you end up with tree blocks to make up this runner.  In the book it is a quilt, but for the quilt along she gave us the runner pattern.  I love making these! 

In the first photo you can see I quilted the trees with a wishbone design, and loops in the background.  And a version of loopy ribbon candy in the border.  

Thanks for looking at my scrappy trees!

Linking with Oh Scrap!

Runner finishes

Here are a few runners I completed during the past month. I was trying something new just to see if I would like it and I still am not sure.  The star points I made using a square of fabric and folding into a triangle and laying on top of the sashing and then sewing it in the seam when I added the next piece. Look at the close up picture and you will see better what I mean.  It gave a dimensional star point. What I didn't like was the quilting with that loose star point.

Fall leaves are a favorite of my customers so I had to get a supply of them ready.  The leaves are paper pieced.  I guess I have lots of scraps in these colors, at least these help use some up!

I was going for a bit of a modern feel with the quilting of straight lines on the black background.

This runner is from a pattern in Anka's Treasures newest book.  I love using grey with snowmen, as you know, so why not with snowflakes!  I love how it came out. I actually pieced this one while on our big vacation. The swirl hooks got quilted on after we got home.

Hope you all had a great weekend. We spent it biking on our Terra Trikes, and kayaking which makes it a great summer weekend. It was 77 degrees and the teeniest of breezes.

Linking up with
Oh Scrap
MCM
Podunk Pretties
Linky Tuesday
Scraptastic Tuesday

Trees, Trees and more Trees

Heather Mulder Peterson from Anka's Treasures recently had a quilt along for either the Let It Snow quilt from her book Angles with Ease 2 or this runner.  The runner she wrote up and gave those of us who wanted to make it instead of the quilt.  Since I love making runners I chose the runner.

This is my finished runner. My trees are all from green scraps from my green bin. We started by making the trees so I didn't bother to pick out my border fabric. After all I have 2 tubs of Christmas fabric-surely I will have something to go with those green trees. Yep I sure did:-)   I love the pinecone fabric with it, just perfect IMHO!  The pattern goes together very easily. You do need Heather's Angles with Ease ruler to do the designs in the book(and this runner). But since I tend to be a ruler junkie, that wasn't a problem as I already had it ;-)

For the quilting I choose wishbones for the trees, loops for the background. One inch piano keys for the border finishes it up.

Joining in these linky parties...

Oh Scrap 

Freemotion at the River

MCM

What's on my frame today...

This is what is on my frame this morning, almost done quilting it. It will then live in my 'binding pile' for a while. I am in a quilting mood right now so I will take advantage of that in hopes of quilting up about 10 more this week. Then I will make myself get their bindings all on, LOL

Linking up with Connie's freemotion by the River and Lorna's Let's Bee Social, links on the left sidebar!  Also Quilt Story and Freshly Pieced