Give Thanks

 I give thanks for being able to work with panels and come up with border ideas for them. Sometimes they can be a bit wonky so you have to work with them by spritzing them with water, sometimes a little starch and a hot iron. This one wasn't to bad so it went quickly. 

My additions to this panel start with the skinny green sashing and then added in the gold, orange and neutral HST's. I surrounded that by a small black border and finished with a colorful border of mums. It looks so pretty on my quilt hanger than I kinda hate to see it go, LOL. But I will let it go as I have too many seasonal ones already. 

I am getting low on this backing fabric, I bought several yards way back and love using for the fall sunflower quilts and runners.

It was a rainy weekend so it was sewing day all day on Saturday, I pieced this one. Quilting will be this week I hope. 

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

What I have been up to

We are not usually spontaneous people, we like to plan. However we surprised ourselves and with only 4 days notice packed the camper, ATV and kayaks and took off to Wisconsin to hit some ATV trails. We found nice weather in the 70's and low humidity(important to me!). Three days of riding the trails. We crossed over many bridges, but man this one was a honey, long, wide and well built it spanned over the Chippewa River. 

We rode through lots of forest, if we kept going the bugs didn't bother us, but if we stopped watch out as they were ready for lunch, LOL.  We had to find a clearing so we could eat our own lunch without as many bugs.  And after lunch we came upon wild blackberries, what a delicious treat.

We did manage to get the kayaks in the river on the last day. Then another spontaneous moment...hubby found another trail about an hour away from our camp. Because we rode all the trails in our first area we decided to pull the camper with the toys to a different campground and ride that trail too. 
Then the next day, on the way home I visited two Mennonite fabric shops.  Brubakers and Pine Hollow, if you were looking for quilt shop fabric they had good prices on it.  I found these panels and well I had to support the shop right!!

This pumpkin one is really crooked! But I will work with it to straighten it out, cut it apart and make into three wall hangings instead of one. 

The cardinals were so vibrant I couldn't pass it up. 

And well the Blue Jays was such a pretty blue, I was surprised it was flannel, a very soft one. If I get time this year I will make them into wall hangings, if not they will still be here for next year;)

Now that I am home I am back at the long arm a few days this week. I put this one on the frame yesterday and hope to finish it today.  I might add it is good weather to stay inside and quilt as the temps are up there and it's very humid again, uggh.

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

A little of everything

 Happy Monday to you all!  This past week I dug into my Christmas panel bin and decided this one was next to get perked up a bit. Here is how it looked after I squared and trimmed it up. 

From my stash, I chose a red with gold sprinkles for the first border to enhance this panel. Next was the black and gray fabrics for many 2.5" finished HST's(half square triangles). These were quickly cut using my HST die from my 8" Accuquilt cube. You all know how much I love using my dies for the quickness and the accuracy.

After the HST's were added I framed them with the same red fabric before adding a green holly print final border.

After some custom quilting, binding and a hanging sleeve added it was time for a photo shoot;)

All fabrics came from the stash.

So rewarding to have used another panel, which is now in my Etsy shop.  This week I need to remake three table runners and quilt up yet another panel!

On Saturday we enjoyed the day with both our kids, their spouses and our three grandkids for our Thanksgiving. It had been a couple years since we were all together. Our daughter made this turkey shaped appetizer plate.

We supplied the turkey and our Son-in-law offered to smoke it. It was delicious. We had all the other normal thanksgiving food too. 

I woke up super early on Sunday morning and finished up my socks! And just in time to wear them with a purple fleece yesterday.

Numerous sales going on at Accuquilt-- 

For 11/17/23-11/27/23 ---BLACK FRIDAY DEALS! -- 25% off GO!, GO! Big, GO! Dies and Bundles

and at the same time

BLACK FRIDAY DEALS! -- 15% off GO! Qubes, GO! Accessories, Downloadable Embroidery and June Tailor Items

One day only 11/21/23---BLACK FRIDAY ON TUESDAY! -- Extra 20% off $100+ Orders (use code: TUESDAY20)

Linking with:

Design Wall Monday

Sew and Tell Monday

Halloween #3 and fireworks

These Halloween panels have been so fun to work on. It all starts by cutting out the small panel which is approximately 9" square. Well I make it square by spritzing with water, starch, pulling here and there to square it up while pressing it into submission. I didn't get any progress shots but you will get the idea of how this came together while seeing the quilting at the same time.  

The panel had the little teeny black and white checked sashing along with the orange around it, so that is where it all begins.

The row of mummies at the top and bottom were on the selvedge sides of the panel of six blocks. I utilized them by adding them too.  

From there a coping strip of black sets it off before I added the purple pieced checkerboard outer border. 

I found a couple of cute buttons to add more character to this 17"x23" wall hanging.

Onto the last leg of our summer vacay-the fireworks.  Back to Oshkosh, WI for the Pyrotechnic Guild International(PGI) week long fireworks event.  We enjoyed lots of fireworks, there were 2 nights where the public can attend in addition to the PGI members.  The above video gives you an idea of what we were treated to.  We are members so we could attend more nights where there was competition and these were awesome. Also Junior PGI members made them and showed us a wonderful display one night. Of course the hubster attended classes and seminars and he made a rocket and then got to fire it off, it was very neat to watch it go off.

When he had some free time we went out for a relaxing kayak ride on a lake. Just look how smooth it looked. We packed our picnic lunch at at on the water. 

We spotted this cool little lighthouse at a park, so we had to investigate, it didn't look like it was in service anymore.

In case you were wondering what I was doing while hubby was attending classes etc.  I spent some enjoyable time at the sewing machine in the fifth wheel.  I had the back patio opened up and all of a sudden a lady from across the way came walking up and we started talking quilting, yes she was a quilter spending the summer in WI from Florida.

On our last day we had nothing planned in the afternoon so I got to go to Primitive Gatherings quilt shop! OMG, OMG, what a treat. This store is huge and packed with fabric, patterns both quilt ones and wool related. Samples of everything all over the place.  It was warm outside so hubby came in, even he was impressed!  If you get the chance to visit in the area of Larsen, WI you should go to it!

All in all this summer was unusual for us. Out of 6 weeks we were only home for 4 days!  It was fun but we are also glad to be home and returned to a normal schedule. I can hardly believe it is September already!!  And guess what...I am returning to WI twice this month, LOL.  This Wednesday I leave for 3 days to go see a friend and we will then go to Madison to the quilt show. I haven't been to it since before Covid so I am anxious to immerse myself and hope for lots of inspiration.  And of course spending time with a friend is a benefit!

Linking with Friday Foto Fun, Finished or Not, Whoop Whoop, Peacock Party and Off The Wall Friday

Remember that Accuquilt has a great sale on until Sept. 4th.  LABOR DAY SALE! -- 25% off Sitewide (use code: LABORDAY  This is an affiliate link where I receive a small commission for each sale. 

Halloween #2 and more vacay photos

Let's start with the quilting since this is mainly a quilting blog. However this was pieced while on vacay:) It's definitely time to get Halloween items listed in my Etsy shop so I am on a roll.  The center of this is one of six panels on this piece of fabric. Each piece is approximately 9" square and is from Henry Glass. 

I was so focused on this wall hanging that I forgot to take in progress shots. But when you look at the photos you can see I left the original orange fabric around the panel.  The little green faux piping is where I started doing my own thing with the borders. Including another faux piping border in black and white stripes before the final ghost fabric border.

And before long Halloween #2 was all done and it waited to be quilted when I got home.  

Lots of stitch in the ditch (SID) occurred and then some fun U turn quilting in the polka dot white triangles. Cross hatching on the diagonal on the panel square itself. Piano key spaced at 1.5" on the outer border.

Before long it was all quilted, bound, and listed in my shop.  And onto Halloween #3, I'll save that for another post;)

So this leg of the vacay was all about the ATV trails in the Lakewood, WI area. We had a week there. Here is a sampling of one of the trails we took. This one had very sandy trails and hubby was having lots of fun driving on this one. Lots of curves too!  Along this trail we started seeing wild black berries. But most of them were green yet.

But on the next trail in a different county they were ripe!!  We might have eaten a few and we might have brought home a few for the freezer. 

You never know what the trails are going to be like until you are on them. A few bridges to cross on this one. I have to say the weather sure cooperated with us and we were surprised that there were not many bugs. 

Linking up with Monday Musings, Design Wall Monday  Sew and Tell Monday., and This and That Monday.

Labor Day sales at Accuquilt start Aug. 29th thru Sept. 4th 2023... LABOR DAY SALE! -- 25% off Sitewide (use code: LABORDAY  This is an affiliate link where I receive a small commission for each sale. 

Halloween #1

Before we left for vacay way back in mid July I just couldn't resist working on the Halloween panel I found in a shop up north.  It was just such a fun whimsical panel that made me smile. I had 4 days in between trips so in between doing laundry, getting groceries and repacking a camper I dug into designing this wall hanging and couldn't stop until it was all pieced. 

I absolutely love how it turned out. The panel and the spiderweb border fabric were the only new ones, the rest came from my stash. 

Here is how the panel began. 

And here it is all quilted up since we got back home last weekend.

All photographed and listed in my Etsy shop.  Yes I have returned to a busy quilting schedule and I love it;)

More vacay photos and details in upcoming posts!  

Linking with these very fun Wednesday linky parties- Wednesday Wait Loss and Midweek Makers.

Could you resist this cutie

Watch out I am on another panel journey!  This panel has 4 of these cuties on it, this is the second one I have made.  You can see the first HERE

The panel part is only the snowman with this little green border around him

And then I added the snowflake border, black and white checkerboards, pinwheels, the black/gray marble border and finished it off with the snowflake outer border.  I didn't have the perfect green(for the pinwheel) to match their green border, but I got close. 

Linking with Monday Making and Design Wall Mondays

 

Scarecrow time

It's a scarecrow thing!  I am thrilled to have had some time in the past couple weeks to work on a few new things. And working with panels is fun to see what I can come up with.  

I got a nice start on it and then he became a UFO while I worked on a few other things. He sat in a corner patiently until one day he said 'would you quilt me already'!  I listened;)

After squaring up the little scarecrow I framed it with a black/gray marbled fabric and stenciled on the leaves.  I actually stenciled the onto the fabric and after drying added to the scarecrow...I didn't want to mess up and then have to rip!

Next came the green and orange checkerboard border and the cute little pinwheels and circled everything with the black/gold metallic cork like fabric. The orange and green fabrics were all from the scrap bin. Even though it didn't make a dent it was nice to use some:)

Obviously the quilting is a fun part for me too!

Isn't he just a sweet scarecrow, not sure how many birds he will scare!  

Linking with fun Friday linky Parties:

TGIFF

Finished Or Not Friday

Off The Wall Friday

Peacock Party

Oh Scrap!

Using a Panel-Take Two

 The first table runner using a panel turned out so good that I chose three more blocks from the panel and I now have a different look for the second one. If you missed the first one you can see it HERE.

After squaring up the blocks I added the dark gray sashing to bring it up to 8 1/2" square. Then I could use two flying geese units on each side of the blocks and white squares in the corners. The geese are 2"x4" finished, which meant I could use two Accuquilt dies from the 8" cube set to make these very quickly. What I hadn't realized was how it was going to look, when I put it all together you don't see the flying geese so much as the secondary pattern it formed. I like it a lot!  I didn't use EQ to design this, only my head and the design wall, so I was flying by the seat of my pants for the whole thing. 

 After the blocks were finished I needed something to make it longer.  So why not make flying geese gingham trees to put in between the blocks.  Like the runner in the previous post, I cross hatched the blocks.  Swirly wishbones are always a good choice for the trees, a quick meander in the white background and continuous curve(CC) in the red flying geese. And now I have another farmhouse look table runner!

                             And just to bring us back to the real season that is happening now...

So several years ago I had purchased a yellow calla lily, it bloomed once while we were on vacation and our daughter took it's photo for us.  And then it never bloomed again, I figured it was dead. I was just telling one of my followers about this and three days later I was watering them and HOLY COW, there it was blooming!!!!!!!  In our climate we do have to dig them and store them in the basement over the winter and then plant in the spring. No matter the color, yellow or white, I store them in a brown paper bag.  I don't have many so it works fine.

Accuquilt wants you to know about a fun launch party coming up on July 6th. They are introducing the die of the month.  If you are curious sign up for this party HERE, there are prizes involved, dies and fabric!!  But you have to be signed up to be eligible for them. 

All the talk about Feedburner going away and hearing so many bloggers switching over to Follow.It, I started working on it yesterday. I added the new Follow Me By Email at the top of my right side bar. I will work on getting people switched over or if you don't want to miss a thing or are new here feel free to sign up again. Hopefully it all works out.  I wish Feedburner would have stayed put, it was working fine wasn't it, you might say I don't like change!   

Linking with Midweek Makers, Wednesday Wait Loss, Favorite Monthly Finish