Applique Tuesday

I'm working on those blocks for my UFO challenge.  It called for applique:

Still needs embellishment. And while I had the applique tools out, I decided to work on a block from Anna's Garden - the January UFO.

With the Solstice block I made that had an appliqued basket that made 3 blocks of applique in the past few days - a record for me. I do believe I'm getting faster at this. The owl block was done using the crafty applique method. The other two are freezer paper and starch.

Have you done any applique lately?  I'm linking to some linky parties under my tab for them and to Let's Be Social.  Go see her darling Elephant Parade.

Applique Tuesday

Another block of WIP #17 done. No more prepped ones.  Will need to try to do the next one. Wish me luck.

Applique Tuesday

I'm never seeming to get to applique any more. I asked myself why this is happening. Well?  I'm just spending too much time on other things. And?  After taking a long and hard look at my days, I see I spend a lot of time online, and then this video came to my attention:
So I'm going to cut down on my computer time. Now this won't matter to many, but I'm writing this for the few who'll be wondering what's going on in this household. I'll still be here, but I may not have time to reply, comment or post as often with the new regime I'm instigating. I'll see how it goes.

I think I'll go do some applique now.

Blessings,
Angie in SoCal

Applique Tuesday Week 36

I am hand appliqueing the sixth basket. Three more to go and then I'll make 27 leaves for the flowers.  Once those are stitched in place, I can add the flowers. Little by little.








In the garden, even in the depth of our drought, we are blessed with touches of beautiful color:

What are you up to?  Let me know in a comment and I'll come by and have a look. I'm linking this post to Connie's Linky Tuesday and to Esther's WOW.  You should go on over to both of these ladies and see the beautiful work they are doing.

Applique Tuesday Week 35

Not back to a normal schedule yet.  Found I have one more basket to make - I have no idea where the 8th background went.  I may have left it in Colorado. Sigh.  Working on that now. I may have some finishes for Friday. On my design wall is still my WIP #7 wall hanging:

Need to sandwich so I can start quilting it.  I'm going to use the facing method to bind this. Will measure about 20 square when done.

I mentioned the Rocky Mountain Quilt Festival and the Hoffman Challenge when I was vacationing.
Turns out this venue is the first place they are exhibited for the year, so we got to see them all. Way more than I realized.  Here are some I captured with my phone:

Believe this was the top winner. If it wasn't, it should have been.  Those camels seemed ready to walk right out of that quilt. Amazing!

 The challenge fabric was perfect for the tablecloths in this still life.

 Many had a Persian feel/theme to them.

 Lots of elephants in this year's offerings.

 Beautiful applique use of the challenge fabric.

Another glorious work with applique and piecing.  Wish I had had time to write down the winners and names, but I was trying to do the whole show and vendors in  a mere two and a half hours.

What are you up to?  Let me know with a comment and I"ll come by to see your goodies.
Blessings!

Applique Tuesday Week 34

Actually, no applique since I got home from CO. Did prep all 7 blocks there,  so now I can start adding the flowers - but no photos yet. I'm having the grandsons over this week - the last free one before school, so no time in the sewing room with a 11 and 13 year old around. Just got back from swimming at the neighbors. Stay cool!

Applique Tuesday Week 33

I prepped for applique this past week as I'm in Colorado this week and have no access to a machine. I needed a hand stitching project. It's WIP #13 I'm working on and I call it Hexie Baskets. I found the pattern for the blocks in an old Quilter's Newsletter magazine, issue 260 - March 1994 - way before I took up making hexagons or discovered Karen at Faeries and Fibres .  Stars in the Loft is the one that stunned me into the possiblities of hexies beyond Grandmother's Flower Garden.

So I pulled out the pattern and began assembling the hexagon flowers in 2012 after reading Karen's tutorials. I decided to only attempt a 9 block version.  The hexagons are 1/2" .  I brought with me 7 baskets and 7 handles to applique onto the 13" squares of muslim I cut.

When I get back from CO, I'll add the finished flowers  to the blocks, and they will look like this:
                                       
Then it will be time for more hand stitching, or maybe I'll do it with the machine - stitching around the flowers and leaves that is.

Bye for now,
Angie in SoCal

Applique Tuesday Week 31

Hey! I have some applique to share - it's machine applique, but that counts.  Here's my third block of that store hop from 2010:

This is a Dresden plate block but it sure looks like a square with triangles sticking out.  Think it is the fabric that makes it look like that.  The blades are all the same size.  ??

What are you up to?  I'm prepping some blocks to take with me for some hand stitching while I'm in Fort Collins next week. That's taking up all my sewing time these days. Leave me a comment and I'll come by and see your great quilties or life shots as I take breaks from starting to get ready to fly off to see my DS and DGS.

Blessings,

Some of This and That on Monday

Gosh, it's been since May that I've done a de-stashing report.  I was at a YTD total of 46.39 yards.  Now let's see what I've used since then. Let me calculate:
Made a quilt for my DGS's preschool teacher - 2yards; various hexie flowers - .10 yard; a mug rug - .25 yard; a new charity quilt top - .75 yard; a backing for my elephant quilt - 1 yard; eight blocks for my VA quilt - .33 yard; and a back for my VA quilt - 1 yard for a grand total of 5.43 yards - not very good for 2 months!  But I'm happy to say I went through my stash and pulled approximately 20 yards of pieces of fabric to sell at my guild's annual yard sale at the  August meeting.   So that is much better and I can report  YTD total of 71.82 yards de-stashed.

On my design wall is another charity top I'm working on:

This is using some of those blocks children colored for us at the festival.  This is a free pattern offered by Luana at Equilter. You can see it here. Easy peasy.

What are you up to?  Leave me a comment and I'll come by to see your latest.  Blessings, all!

Applique Tuesday

I was going to machine applique some flowers to the blue background, but I realized I have to iron on stabilizer first. Wonder what I did with it.  ??  So I went ahead and finished the quilting on those two quilts:

Here I'm binding the elephant quilt.  I can't show it until it is gifted - maybe by Friday - we'll see. The other is a charity quilt and I'll show that Friday, too.

What are you working on?  Would love to see.  Leave me a comment and I'll come by.
Blessings!

Yet Again

no Applique on Tuesday except for the machine applique I finished on the border of the elephant quilt, but I did finish the last hexie flower for my WIP #3!  Yeah - all 36 done.

 Now I have to decide how I want to put them together. Hmmm. I've also been quilting my elephant quilt. Waiting for a thread from Superior. Had nothing the right color to finish the foliage.

Trying a few different motifs.

Let me know in a comment what you've been up to, and I'll come by for a visit. Blessings!

Applique Tuesday

Our guest appliquer this week is Lily!  She wanted to put together something else.  I gave her a piece of background, around 10 x 12" I marked with a Frixion pen a 1/2" line in from the sides. I gave her a box of scraps and a glue stick.  Then I told her to paint a picture with the scraps - any color, size, shape she wanted.  Once she had them where she wanted them, I had her turn them over and rub some glue on the backs and replace to where she wanted them and pat them down.  This took her about an hour to do - I was able to get some quilting in while she created.  When done, we cut a like size piece of batting and I let her pick a back.  She picked colorful flowers. You can see the print in the border.  I cut the back an 1 1/4 larger than the front, sandwiched and did raw edge applique on the machine.  Here's Lily's piece:

I suggested she use it as a placemat. She looked at me affronted and said, "It'll get dirty, Grandma!" She's going to put it on the end table near her bed.

And on my design wall - another baby quilt top. This measures 30".

 I love those owls!

What have you been up to --applique or other wise?  Leave me a comment and I'll come by and take a look at your eye candy.  Blessings!

No Applique This Tuesday

Lily is here and we've been having fun, hanging out, doing things together and playing board games.  It's been too hot to go out for long. For example, it was 101 degrees at 12:30 today, and that wasn't the high.

We're doing a little sewing.  First she practiced doing some lace cards to get the idea the thread goes up and down and pretending the end of the shoelace is the needle.  She caught on fast so we moved onto this:

And she's only five years, 2 months old!  Another sewist in the family.  Now Deanna, if you read this, don't let on.  She want's it to be a surprise.

She's so happy doing it!  Xs are next. And while she stitches I'm managing a few minutes of quilting:

Life is good - hot, but good.  Off to swim lessons.

What are are you stitching or quilting?  Let me know and I'll come by and visit.  Might not be able to comment, but would love to see your eye candy.

Blessings and send any excess rain our way, please!

Applique Tuesday

Have you been to San Francisco?

Applique Tuesday Week 24

or The Madness of Deconstruction - that's what today was. I was working on a VA quilt. I'd made this block. It was easy, came out great. Started on the second one. What a mess cutting one piece wrong can make.

As you can see the corner square was 1/2" too small. It should have been 6 1/2" square. It was 6 by 6 1/2.  So I added fabric to the short side and resewed the corners. Sewd the two squares together and realized that in making the units with the wrong squares I misaligned the points - hence the big space between the star points. Ugh! 

So I took off each unit and was going to fix the points,  but I only had enough to fix the one side of two - no more of that fabric available.  Did that and then realized it didn't help on one side because the points didn't come close to alignment. They were off by 3/4" horizontally!  It looked like I just starting piecing. Turned out the setting triangle was too big. So ripped out that unit again. Took apart the seams around one side of the large triangle. I then basted it with the unit by setting the seam allowance of the star unit 1/4"lower to the edge of the triangle. When I checked,  that seemed to work. So took out the basting, cut off 1/4" from the one side of the triangle and resewed the seam.

Looks much better although the colors are wrong in this photo.  The top colors are correct in the middle photo.  Those two unfixed bottom corners won't be so bad as they don't get connected to another block - they'll just look a little wonky. What a way to spend the day!

In the middle of this chaos, I dropped everything and sat down and did a little hand stitching to save my sanity. My elephants now have eyes - my applique for this day.

What are you up to?  Leave me a comment and I'll come by and see your goodness - quilty or not.

Blessings

Applique Tuesday -

The paver is finished.  I now wish I'd found a light orange or gold hexie for the center. I don't like how the green obscures one of the points, but that's a print for you.  That's my problem with scrappy blocks - I start to obssess of what goes with what and it can take hours to make progress.  This is going to my design wall.

We had our church festival and had a good time. While we didn't make a lot of money as some other booths, we did get nearly 100 blocks made by the children to be put in baby quilts later in the year.

Here are a few of the cute blocks they made for us.  Some were original designs and the others were designs we provided. Aren't they cute?

Here's our booth at the start of the day.

A Granddaughter of one of our members made the just right sign.

Here's the raffle quilt on display in the booth.

And a bonus for us - a longarm quilter came by and asked us if we could use her batting scraps in the baby quilts.  Turns out she has a pile of squares 40" square that would be perfect for our quilts.  And we were just about to run out!  God is good!!

On the machine applique front  - I pressed all the interfacing to the back of the top I"m working on.

I discovered that if I placed the top, wrong side up, on my light box, I could easily see where I needed the stabilizer, the shape it has to be, and where I could cut out centers.  They are all now fused. I need to keep doing an applique section daily.

What are you working on? Would love to see. Leave a comment and I'll come by and check out your eye candy.

Applique Tuesday

Hello.  I used a tiny bit of stash to make another star plus check out a pattern that may be my next hand project.  It's called Garden Pavers.  You can see it here.  Below is my test sample:

It's sitting on a mug rug I made that needs to have the binding stitched down. And as you can see in the photo, I'll be appliqueing the hexie to the center of this sample.  The large hexie is 3" to a side. So probably used a fat eighth of fabric giving me a YTD total of  42.02 yards out. for this week's de-stashing

And here's the star:

Reminds me of a morning glory flower.   Think I'll make one more for my garden.

Coming off my design wall is the Festival raffle quilt. It's all quilted - just needs to be bound.

I did make some progress on my machine applique quilt.  It's just taking a lot more time than I thought.  I'm linking up to Judy's Patchwork Times and Lyn's BOMs Away. See you there.

Applique Tuesday

Machine Applique that is.  This is taking me much longer than I thought.  It's those zagged edges to the palm leaves.  Have to be done slow.  And yes, I discovered that it does need stabilizer in the back.

Did one with and one without. What a difference.  I'm using invisible thread and So Fine in the back with a zig zag of 1.0 wide and 1.0 long and a 60/08 needle.  I get these nests of top thread every once in a while in the back.  ??? Don't know what causes this and the top thread isn't broken. Strange.  Has that happened to you?  

On my design wall is the church festival quilt:

I am quilting it now.  Think of it as a square I Spy quilt.  We're going to raffle it at our church festival May 31st.  St Anne members are doing a booth for kids to color fabric squares to later use in baby quilts. Our goal is to show them that they can help others with simple tasks and make a difference. Will also teach them how to make finger crocheted bracelets.

I can't understand how I keep getting sidetrack from my WIPs and applique projects.  Always something. Nothing changed in my stash report.  Still YTD fabric usage stands at  YTD total of 46.39 yards.  

How are you doing?  Leave me a comment and I'll come back to see your endeavors.   And don't forget to visit the Blogger's Quilt Festival.  So much inspiration there. Button on top of sidebar. Bye for now.

Applique Tuesday May 12

I was determined to do some applique. I spent a couple of hours working on this quilt. I wanted to use raw edge applique on it.  Now what is the difference between raw edge and broderie perse? Someone enlighten me, please. Here's a corner of it:

There are four pieces added to the border here.  I'm having fun with it. Can't show you all of it as it is a gift.  I'm linking to Connie's Linky Tuesday Party - she's always got some fabulous quilt she's done.

What are you up to?  Leave me a comment and I'll pop on over and check out your eye candy.
Bye for now,
Angie in SoCal

Some of This, Some of That - May5th

Alas, no appliqué!  But I'm determined to get back to it this week - even if it's only those eyes for the elephants.

Again, I have yardage to report (surprise to me!).  Used 2 yards to finish my WIP #10.  Then I used another yard for the Festival quilt I started. I also began another VA quilt - for another .5 yard. Lastly, I took apart that hexie flower in my tut where I used red thread and resewed it.  So the YTD use now stands at 41.89 yards .  

And from the retreat - finally had a chance to have DH hold the quilt top #10 up for a photo:

VA lap quilt ready to sandwich

On my design wall:

Start of another quilt I saw at Shelly's Prairie Moon Quilts.

Another D9P - busy, huh?

And from my garden:

This plant ideally likes 45 inches of rain - some in spring and some in fall and we had only 4.5 inches so far this year. Our rainy season ends June 30th.

But it fruited for us!

 It is so delicious! Hardly acidic and so sweet. What a nice treat from the backyard.

Here's the next one which should be ready in a couple of month.  And another forming:

All started from a bought pineapple.

So what are you up to?  Would love to see your eye candy - from the sewing room or the garden. Leave me a comment and I'll come by.  Bye for now.