It's all in the Stars

Making these Swirling Stars table toppers with the 60 degree diamond ruler had me swirling so much I had to make these five table runners. They are so fun to put together. Krista Moser has a free pattern for them. Although hers is made with smaller strips and more of them, I simplified mine to use larger strips and less of them. 

Fall leaves-SOLD

One for Halloween, representing the candy corn.

Winter snowflakes in blues-SOLD

Who can resist plaid and paisley for the fall or year round to match your decor.

Evergreen and pinecones that could be Christmas or just an Up North style.

Linking up with Wednesday Wait Loss

Midweek Makers

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Patriotic runner

Recently we took a drove to see if we could spot eagles over at the Mississippi river.  It's always a gamble if one will see them or not.  That got me to thinking of making a patriotic runner.  I pictured it in my head and then went into EQ8 when I got home.  This is what I came up with.  I have quite a bit of red, white and blue fabric in the stash so I got right to work on it.

We got really lucky and spotted about 25 eagles that day, this is a poor picture but you get the idea and have proof we saw some!!  There were about a dozen sitting on the ice near the open water. But only a couple of those had their white heads yet. 

I quilted a wavy line using a wavy ruler with white thread in the white fabrics and red thread in the red fabrics.  An allover loop design in blue thread on the blue fabric worked well.  After quilting and binding, I machine appliqued the white stars.  I didn't want the blue fabric showing through the white star so I put a soft fusible interfacing on the back of the star.  That also helps keep the fraying down.  Two sizes of stars were used, the smaller 2 near the red stripes and the larger in the middle.

 This is now listed in my Etsy shop.

Linking with Midweek Makers, Wednesday Wait Loss and Let's Bee Social

Stars and a Scooter

Continuing with a blast from the past-my blue/mauve collection left from the 90's.  While digging through my bin of blue and mauve's I found 18 star blocks all pieced, I added 6 more and some sashings. And why not use more of those fabrics for a piano key border and a pieced back!  Even if these are not current colors I think it turned out really cute! 

I decided to keep the quilting simple with just a large stipple so I can get this out the door to Project Linus.

And here comes the Scooter- A free pattern by Lindsey Weight at Fort Worth Fabric.  What a fun quick quilt to make up for baby!  This is the first done of the three I have pieced lately.  You could make this totally scrappy or a little scrappy(which is what I did). 

When it came time to take pictures, I mentioned to DH that I needed to come up with better ways to take pictures instead of just throwing the quilts on the deck or ground/snow.  He said how about the bright orange grandson's sled. Wow it worked perfectly for color!

An allover freehand flower complimented the orange outside border fabric.  

Linking with Fabric Friday Frenzy, Finished or not, Oh Scrap, Crazy Mom Quilts, 

Scraptastic Tuesday

Commissioned-3 identical runners

I was commissioned by a friend to make her three table runners. Two were to be identical in every way and the third identical in the pattern but with different fabrics.  We chose the disappearing nine patch as she needed them skinny, 14" or less and three feet long.  They have been done and delivered as of last Wednesday and she loved them.  While here she bought 2 more wall hangings and another runner, it was a good week for me and her house is going to look very festive as these were all Christmas items.

 Quilted with Glide thread on top and SoFine on the bottom with Hobbs 80/20 batting.

A close up of the quilting.

As a little thank you for her and another friend I made them these Christmas cards using a Hershey Miniature for the snowman.   I also made them these popular stars with some fun Island Batik fabric strips.

These were very fun to make and oh so quick and easy.  There are many tutorials on the net and some YouTube video's as well.

Our outdoor Christmas lights this year. Every year we try to do something different. I had the idea of using the chain link fence that surrounds our little garden as a way to hang some lighted snowflakes. It worked out perfectly because after dark when you  don't see the fence it looks like the flakes are falling. A lighted snowman, which you don't see well because it it sideways in this view, compliments the flakes.  The 3 trees in between the flakes and candy canes are made by wrapping light strings around tomato cages. 

Linking with MCM#52, and Freemotion by the River

Scrappy Stars

Two years ago I bribed a friend into coming over and pressing strings and scraps from the scrap bin(s) in return for some quilting. While she pressed away I cut away into 5" squares,  5" strips etc. with certain patterns in mind to use them in the future. I did use 'some' of the strips but those 5" sqs were still waiting their turn. This past Thursday I got them out and also found 2.5" squares already cut. Yeah I was all set to just sew those babies up.  Pedal to the Metal!!

Alright 2 blocks done and up on the design wall. Stood back admired them...well shoot, I didn't have the perfect star block, do you see my mistake?  Those 2.5" squares were not big enough to make the star points correct. But, hmmm, I want to use what's cut and get on with it. So I did, I left it the way it was.  And in the end it worked out OK, not perfect but OK.  This will be a donation quilt, it will still keep someone warm and wrapped in a quilty hug.

Four blocks were done on Thursday. Friday I had an adventure with three friends. We went to check out a craft sale an hour north of me to see if  I might want to vend at it next year.  I took a few samples with me, table runners, snowmen and children's sweaters. The gals in charge loved them and wished I could have been there this year. Yeah me too. It was in her home, she clears out a lot of furniture and sets up several crafter's wares in all the rooms on the main floor. Very nicely arranged. She has some table runners there, but mine were different enough, she had no fabric snowmen and no children's sweaters. She wants me to bring stuff next year, so I left really stoked!!

 And we three friends had lunch out and went to another craft sale before heading home. A great day was had.  So after all that I managed to sew a bunch more blocks and finished up more today and was able to get them sewn together. I am glad I decided to stagger them and cut a couple blocks in half to fill in the top and bottom of each column.  So far it is all from the scrap bins!!  Next I will plan a border, which most of it will be from scraps.

I wrote the draft for this post last night before going to bed. And this is what we woke up to this morning-last we knew we were only to get an inch or less. There is 3 inches for sure and man the trees are thick this morning, it is still snowing. But in MN this is normal so no bigee. This is the first measurable for the season.

Linking with Oh Scrap