New Design Wall

Some of you readers know that I was looking to redo my design wall.  Thank you to all who gave suggestions of what to use.  By far, most of you said to use flannel.  I did. Jo-Ann's had white solid flannel on sale, so I bought two yards, Then put it aside - 2 weeks of vacation started the next day. Now back, and able to continue my redo, I straighten the edges of my fabric - measures now 44 x 68.
And DH helped me staple it to my stash bookcase.
I use my design wall also as a cover for my stash to keep it from fading as across from it are two large south facing windows.  To try it out I started another St. Anne's scrap bag baby quilt top.
This also qualifies as a WIP as the blocks are made from scraps from other baby quilts from about 4 years ago. Not on my challenge list (that was a no show this month with all the vacationing), but Yeah!  another WIP top about to be done.  I still have another border to add to it to make it the 35 - 36" square required size.  I'll be linking to some parties - see the tab below the header for more fun quilt browsing.

What are you up to?

Sandwiched, Stitched, Turned and Quilted

This went together fast - a bit over an hour.  Baby quilt for St. Anne's.  Did a wide meander over it. Flannel on back; fabric on front.
The quilting mojo is coming back even though it is 108 outside right now.  Heard from my cousin - no more rain or water in the house.  Harvey is east of them now. Praise be!

Zilch on Design Wall

and I only got 3 1/2 of my 11 hexies done during my trip.  I was reading instead of sewing at the airports, and that seemed to be the only time I had for them - visiting and touring took up all the rest of the time away from home.








I mentioned that one night (Thur) last week I made a peach pie - no pic unfortunately.  They put it in the refrigerator for today's celebration for my #1 son's birthday.  Happy 45th, Son!





Stash report:  0yds out - 8 yards in = last YTD 62.14 - 8.0 = 54.14 yds. Well, I'm still over half way to my goal.  Did you get to quilt in the last two days?  Let me know.

Off to sandwich a quilt.  Blessings!

The Grotto

Friday, we went to a beautiful place in Portland of solitude, peace, and prayer.  It's the National Catholic Shrine dedicated to Mary, Our Sorrowful Mother.

c.The Grotto.  Go here to learn more.



There are beautiful paths through a forest like setting with the Stations of the Cross and statues on the lower level and the Rosary mysteries in the upper gardens.  Much to see.  We spent 3 1/2 hours and didn't cover it all. 

Was hard to believe we were in the middle of Portland.  Nearby from the Meditation chapel on the upper gardens we saw the air traffic tower of the Portland International Airport.  We were way up.
Those are the tops of the houses below us and reflection ponds that line the chapel on two sides.

I loved it there.

Eight Cups

Eight cups of berries from one volunteer bush in the front yard. Pies have been made. Jam is next! Yum.

Eight Yards

I did it! Bought some fabric with no purpose in mind. I'll have to add this to my stash report. Haven't done this since last year when I came to Vancouver and visited the Craft Warehouse where one can buy fine quilting fabrics for half price. Last year I bought so much, I had to mail myself a package - LOL. This time. I came prepared. My suitcase was half empty - hehe. Have you bought fabric lately? 

The Event of the Day

Wasn't on the total eclipse path but saw 95 percent of it at Fort Collins.
The tree shade acted as a pinhole camera. We saw the crescent shape of the sun being eclipsed by the moon on the road.

Did you watch the eclipse?

A Confession

While I create using fabric, an art endeavor of a different kind, I'm not really an artist in the traditional sense with paint, oil or other such media.  So why do I buy, read, enjoy books about art techniques?  Mainly because I find them so fascinating and are very often a art showing in book form.  Take the latest I've been reading:

I could not believe this was a pencil portrait of this young lady.  The cover looked like a photograph - heck, it looked like she is right there in front of me. Amazing!  How is this done with colored pencils?

As a mere reader, I found the book easy to understand and so interesting as Nickelsen takes us through each step, provides the background needed, some very interesting tidbits, for an artist to create these kind of portraits.  She even has a chapter of hands-on examples. It's thrilling to see the portrait emerge.

What will have me picking up this book again are all the portraits Nickelsen has included to demonstrate the technique - like walking into an art gallery to see a private showing. I'm adding this to my art book collection to take down and remind myself of the amazing work artists can do and share with us.

received this book (published by Watson-Guptill Publications, a part of  by Crown Publishing Group from Blogging for Books for this review. 

Next Step

Done prepping. Now I just have to glue baste the 1/4" seams to the back, bag and start stitching once I get to my first destination.  I numbered each piece so that the same pieces go with each other as cut.


Prepping

I'm prepping hexies for some hand stitching while traveling. I'm off to visit family for 10 days or so. DH will be staying home. He doesn't like airports any more.

Scrap Bag Quilt Top Done

Coming off my design wall is my scrap bag quilt top.  Made mostly from scraps in a bag left over from other baby quilts.
Lots of scraps left - will probably try another one, but different.  Added the dark outside border because without it I felt as if the pieces were trying to explode or fly away.  Got to use strips, triangles, squares and odd pieces. More of a challenge than I expected.  Measures 36" square and is for St. Anne's. Visit my tab above for the linky parties I will be going to.

Some of This and Some of That

Quilted

 Bound
 Ready to wash and deliver to my Guild's Community Service for the local NICU.
These are crumb blocks I made years ago.  I've found that if I make crumb blocks from the scraps of one quilt, they go together much faster.  One off my UFO list - one of the 17UFOs in 2017 I"m working on.  Measure 30" square.

As to the winners of the last two giveaways.  I'm sorry Moira and ledamewood  (Last week's winner - I've sent a message).  It's been a crazy three weeks. So now I'll have a bit of time to make the templates and send (hopefully).  I leave Thursday for a 10 day trip to CO and WA.

I'll be making those templates while I watch Father Brown.

I hope you all have a wonderful week.

Design Wall Monday

My wall hasn't changed much, although I have fixed one problem.  Sunday DGS#3 and I did a bit of sewing.  I cut a 6 1/2" square of fusible interfacing (one sided) and handed a pair of scissors and a bag of scraps to him.  He cut and overlapped them all over the square.  Then with a TEFLON sheet, he fused them together.  Then I showed him how to sew a straight line down the piece to further anchor them.

We then cut out two batting squares same size as the top and had him find a fabric for the back.  We cut that two inches bigger.  Going to the ironing board, we folded two opposite sides in half.  Then I had DGS#3 sew them down folded over the sides.  He worked on each part of the process.
We made a pot holder for Mom.  Today he turns 8!


Which is Better -

flannel or fleece for a design wall?  Please let me know.  Our Jo-Ann's is having a sale of both in the next couple of days.

The giveaway for the hexagon papers is still on. Go here to sign up to win. It will end today, Thursday, midnight. 

Sneaking into the sewing room a few minutes before the household is up (namely DGS #3), I've gotten a little farther on my scrap quilt:
 Units not in permanent positions.  I can see a couple of trouble spots that I spotted with my camera's color accent (or sepia) setting.
Do you use this method for arranging color in your quilt layouts?  Esther Aliu (she has a lot of good tips for creating quilts as well as fabulous patterns) got me started with this way to check my fabric selections and arrangements.

Do visit my tab for linky parties above under the header to see which one's I'm linking too.  You can, too.

Blessings to you!

SAHRR Round 5 and 6

  Ready to show rounds 5 and 6. Actually, the prompt for 5 was make 4 of something. So I chose four patch, and actually since that made my q...