Hand Stitching Failure

Yes, it happens.  Some times we fail at what we set out to do.

 Someone donated this oh-so-cute fabric to St. Anne's.  Just love it.  And it is so soft!!  I took it home to fondle and put a crocheted edge to convert this piece of fleece to a baby blanket.  Well that was what I was going to do.  Actually, I learned it may be a micro-fleece.  It's not Minky - but it feels like it. Has no bumps. Can Minky not have bumps?  Any way, I cut the holes for the crocheted edge as usual after trimming the edges.  Got out my pink yarn and started - this was going to be my hand stitching project for today. Ugh, I had too large a hook.  It was making the holes big.  When I came to a corner the slit became a large hole to hold 3 stitches.  This wasn't working.  What could I do?  I tried using the holes to make blanket stitches - that didn't work either - it was too hard to keep the half inch turned edge from getting lumpy. Okay, I fell back to my machine finishing for fleece.  I turned over the edges and zig-zaged them.  That worked!

 Here is the front

 Here is the back

Ready to give to St. Anne's for a new Mom.  So much for hand stitching today.  Did you get some hand stitching done?  Visit Kathy for others who were successful with their stitching. Blessings!

In the Piecing Corner

Got that baby quilt top finished:

Measures 36" square.  Ready to be sandwiched and tied at the next church meeting. The only thing I had to add to the bag contents was the last border. Some scraps left for the next one.

And in the RSC challenge - this month's color is orange! One of my favorites.

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.

I 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!

Design Wall Monday

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

Got a few more sections done on that scrap bag quilt.

While not on my design wall yet, do have the expanded center on it:

Units not in final positions

Sewing and Quilting will be slower for the next month.  I have DGS #3 here from Colorado for two weeks.  His dad flew in with him yesterday and flew out a few hours later. We're going to hang out with #1 and #4 for most of the next two weeks.  Today they start swim lessons.  After breakfast, we're off for my daily walk. Do visit my tab for linky parties above under the header to see which one's I'm linking too.  You can, too.

Hope your day is filled with what you love to do. Blessings,

Discovering My Favorite Scrappy Geese

The giveaway for the hexagon papers is still on. Go here to sign up to win. It will end this coming Thursday, midnight.  The winner of last week's hexies is Moira.  This is her second win according to Random.org.  I have sent her a message.

So what are my favorite geese?  I've made quite a few in the past 31 years of piecing, however, I was never satisfied with the efficiency of the methods.  Making them with squares and rectangles and stitch and flip resulted in leftover triangles and unevenness at times. And it was slow.  There was all the trimming to do.  I then tried  Patti's at patchpieces.com no waste method (NWM) .  This took care of the leftover triangles, was more accurate, and faster.

These days I"m playing more with my scraps and I found NWM isn't always the method for my geese.  The big obstacle is I don't always have pieces large enough to cut "the finished size" plus 1 & 1/4".  Using four different 7/8" larger squares is doable, but still not scrappy enough at times.  What to do?

Another quilter who blogs came through for me.  I remembered I only used triangles to make sawtooth stars for Barbara Brackman's Stars in a Time Warp back in 2015.  It was a pattern from her Blockbase software that only used triangles for the geese, however one is still cutting up squares.  But using Patti's formula to calculate long edge sizes of the two different triangles, I had another way to cut the pieces to make geese using smaller scraps by making paper templates to make the isosceles triangles.

LOL  - too much math, right?  Then I remembered cutting triangles with Bonnie Hunter for one of her mysteries using the Companion Angle ruler! Just what I needed because I can use strips to cut my geese. I have lots of those.  Here's a photo sequence of putting together a scrappy goose.

 The ruler says on the bottom left: Numbers in the middle are the finished triangle base size - just what I needed.  I just had to find a scrappy strip that fit the size of my finished side triangle which was 1 1/2". I knew that from the pattern's (a Pat Sloan Splendid Sampler pattern) unit dimensions minus seam allowance.  Same with the center triangle.

 Once the three pieces were cut, I laid the left side triangle with the long sides (hypotenuse side to you math wizards)together.

 I then sewed a scant 1/4" from the base to the peak and pressed open.

 Did the same for the right side.

Pressed open, trimmed and my goose is done.

Here are my two blocks.  The one on left done with the NWM, and the one on right done with the companion angle ruler.  Don't have the ruler?  Use the NWM to calculate the squares you need.  Cut those from paper, then cut diagonally to get the individual triangles.  Use the templates with your scraps and straight ruler.   As for speedy - the ruler method only has two more seams than the NWM, and is much scrappier.

I hope you get to piece or quilt today.  I'm getting ready for out of town family arriving tomorrow.
Blessings,

WIPs Be Gone Still AWOL

but I do have a finish!  I mentioned in my Sunday post: "... couldn't stand it, had to start something new, so while in the scrap bag I took out some cut off triangles and made a teeny quilt ".  Here it is  - all 4" square of it:

I got my inspiration to make it from Amanda Jean and all her cute pincushions.  I didn't have any crushed walnuts to make one, so I made an itty-bitty quilt instead.  Here's the back:

I gave it to my friend, Sheila, today.  It's her birthday this Saturday.  Happy Birthday, Sheila.

That was fun and quick, too.  Kept me from starting another WIP.  But I am determined this week to get back to them.  Wonder what number Judy will pick on Tuesday?

I'll announce the winner of the hexagon templates, tomorrow.  Have plenty, so will give another 105 (that makes 15 flowers!) for this coming week although it's going to be a busy week as I'll have two grandkids over for the next 14 days.  Same rules. Link up and get one chance. Comment get another. Follow my blog and tell me so and get a third. Closes midnight, next Thursday. Here's what I've used some of mine for (a while ago - one of those WIPs - I refuse to call them UFOs - lol):

Blessings!

BOMs Gone Missing.

I do have BOMs - Splendid Sampler, Fall Festival quilt, log cabin quilt, Bliss (well, I've made it a BOM), etc.  Have I worked on any?  No. I am working on a new "scraps out of a bag" baby quilt instead. The last time I did this I put together 3 baby quilts from one bag. Not going to happen this time. I am making blocks - simple ones - one at a time.  So this is as far as I've gotten:

I've GOT to change the flannel on my design wall.  I'm finding it distracting.  Next time there's a sale, I'll get some white.  Well, anyway, that's as far as I've gotten.  It will be around 36" square.

The giveaway for the hexagon papers is still on. Go back to the last post and sign up to win. It will end this coming Thursday, midnight.

One last subject - it's peach season!  My mom gave me two bags of luscious, juicy, freestone peaches. One of the desserts I love best is fruit cobbler.  But it's too hot to make it right now.  What to do? Make no bake cobbler.  

Take one peach and cut it into bite size pieces.  Sprinkle with a little cinnamon or cinnamon sugar. Pour a 1/4 cup of your favorite granola Mine is honey and almonds) over the peaches.  Top with your favorite vanilla ice cream. Garnish with a pinch of granola or your favorite nut.  Voila!  No bake cobbler.  I was amazed how much it tasted like the baked version. 

Some of This; Some of That

The giveaway for the hexagon papers is still on. Go back to the last post and sign up to win. It will end this coming Thursday, midnight.

Weather has been lovely - low 90s, very little humidity, and some flower sightings:

In the destashing category, used up some scraps to make a few blocks to begin another baby quilt - .60 yd..  Also couldn't stand it, had to start something new, so while in the scrap bag I took out some cut off triangles and made a teeny quilt - .01 yd.  I'll show you my finish next Friday.  Then went through my stash and weeded a donation for the guild - 2 yds. The YTD total is now at 62.14 yds out.

I didn't show you my itty bitty quilt I won at the steal game at our last Guild Mtg.  I got a patriotic one.  Just right for July. Here it is on its holder on an end table in my living room:

Measures 8 1/2" by 10".

Hope you get to do some sewing and quilting today.  I'm finally getting to prep some more hexies to hand stitch as I watch Father Brown tonight. Last week I fell asleep before he came on.

Blessings!