6 inch blocks

The 6 inch blocks for Saturday Sampler this year are stretching my skills, which is definitely a positive thing. I now have made both the full size and the 6" size of Oregon Star. My photo is a little dark because it's a dreary grey day, but I think this is my best small block so far.

Oregon Star

The most recent Saturday Sampler pieced block is called Oregon Star. This might be my favorite so far in this series. I don't have the small version made yet, but it is cut out and ready to go. 

My sewing time may be a little abbreviated for a while. My primary job is mostly staff development and data analysis work with schools in my region. But on Monday morning I was asked to team-teach 3 high school English classes with another teacher. The school is a member of our cooperative and lost a teacher last week, so 2 of us will be covering some courses for at least the rest of the semester and maybe all year. I'll be teaching every other afternoon. Yikes!

I've been out of the traditional classroom for 13 years and have only been teaching a couple of online classes. So I'm feeling a bit rusty. Plus this work is actually in addition to my other duties. Luckily the other teacher will be the "teacher of record" and she will be doing the majority of the planning for all 3 classes (9th, 10th, 11th grades). I anticipate that I will have a lot fewer evenings to sew for now. 

Quilts need to be loved

Granddaughter Sophia is 3 1/2 now and the baby quilt I made for her has been nearly loved to pieces already. It is in her bed every night and has been washed a lot. And that is exactly what I like to hear. But it is also getting too short to cover her up completely. So it is time for a new quilt.

While here visiting this weekend I pulled out a couple of quilts and asked which one she like better. Pink is her favorite color and her face just lit up when she saw this one. It went home with her on Sunday afternoon. 

This was a summer mystery quilt from a couple of years ago, and I'm so glad it is going to be loved and used. 

Pillowcases packed and ready

31 pillowcases are packed in a shopping bag and ready to go. My daughter is delivering them to a friend who volunteers with an agency that works with women and children rescued from human trafficking situations. There is an assortment here so some will go to children and others will be more appropriate for the women.  Just a small gift, but I'm so excited to have these going to a good cause.

Now what?

There are 2 of these and they are finally quilted. These are pillow shams from a Thimbleberries Club project at least a decade ago.  I sewed them but then they just lingered in my sewing room closet hanging on a hanger.

So now what do I do with them? Should I just bind them both? Or should I add envelop backs to turn them into the pillow shams they were supposed to be?  Decisions, decisions . . .

A play date with my sewing room

Yesterday I saw scissor cases on a favorite blog (Wyoming Breezes) and I just had to give this a try. I had the afternoon off and it was a perfect time to play in my sewing room.

The green case on the right side was made according to the tutorial, with the fold going the correct direction and with interfacing inside.  The case will hold a large and small scissors in the 2 front pockets and will hold a rotary cutter in the back pocket - or any combination of 3 cutting tools.  

The 3 black print cases have the fold going opposite of the instructions because I decided I wanted that black print to show more.  The upside of that is that my large scissors fit better. And I like both versions.

The 2 green ones on the left side have fusible fleece inside because I ran out of the interfacing. The fleece made them a bit too thick and so I used pearl cotton and laced up the open side instead of top stitching through all of those layers.  It worked out OK too. 

These 6 cases used up about a yard of fabric and it was all out of my stash including the buttons, except for the one button I purchased.  I even made yo-yos to put under plain black buttons on the 3 black cases. 

Sewing for charity

A group of friends working on a project for a local organization to raffle as a fundraiser - always a fun activity. We got together on Tuesday night and cut all of the quilt pieces including the borders. My task was to make the binding. Done and ready to use! This black print is the main focus fabric.

A finish for October - finally

My Halloween block swap quilt is finally bound and ready to enjoy. I need to come up with a good name for this one and finish the label for the back. Any ideas for me?

I'm connecting to Design Wall Monday at http://www.patchworktimes.com  

Stripes, stripes, and more stripes

I haven't finished anything this week except individual blocks for various projects, But I didn't add anything to the stash either.  My goal today is to finish the binding on my Halloween quilt so that next week I can count it - and even more important - can enjoy it on my sofa.

The striped binding is looking great. It echos the same stripe used in the sashing. And it picks up on the striped socks on the witch's leg block in the center of this quilt. 

In this week:  0 yds

In this year:  194 yds

Out this week:  0 yds

Out this year 161.5 yds

Status of the Stash:  still way behind the stash!

RSC blocks

Number 23 is called Kick. This is the final brown block. Now back to work on the alternate blocks so I can add that row. 

Cousins

These 2 cuties are cousins. The bigger guy is my grandson Jack who just turned 4 months last week. The little guy is his cousin Rayden who is just 1 month old. They met for the first time about a week ago.  The quilt is the one I made for Rayden. His mom is my SIL's sister. 

Vintage Farm Girl

A little Sunday sewing time was spent making the pumpkin and gingham blocks from the Farm Girl Vintage book. The pumpkin block is the one our Sew Vintage group is making for October.

A couple of the ladies made the gingham block too and they were so cute that I had to see what checked prints I had in the 30s stash. And the yellow block was born. 

These are the ones I have done so far.  I'm doing a scrappy background so there is a mixture of cream, white, and a light print.  As I keep going I need to incorporate more of the light prints in the backgrounds.  

Sunday Status of the Stash

Two pillowcases . . . the only finishes for the week.  These went into the donation stack and makes 38 pillowcases to donate to some organization soon.  My other sewing was limited to some hand work on a single applique block.  But at least this is 2 more yards of old stash fabric out of the closet.

I did make a couple of small purchases to add in, including a large pillow kit and 3 fat quarters so I'm going to be generous and say I've added 2 yards into the stash this week. 

In this week:  2 yds

In this year:  194 yds

Out this week:  2 yds

Out this year 161.5 yds

Status of the Stash:  still way behind the stash!

Winner, winner, chicken dinner!!

This is a post I intended to share during the week but kept forgetting to take a photo. For our bus trip (guild shop hop) to the Black Hills last weekend, we offered a pattern to participants to make prior to the trip. However many they made, that is the number of times their name went into the drawing to win blocks. 

We ended up with 24 tree blocks and 19 star blocks to give away. I won this set of 12 trees and am thrilled.  Any ideas of what they should become? Should I sash them and border them to make a lap quilt? 

October goals

I'm a week late but hadn't really forgotten about setting some goals for the month of October.  They are going to be simple ones.

• Rainbow Scrap Challenge - 2 brown blocks + 3 alternate blocks
• Rainbow Scrap Challenge - sew together the brown row blocks
• Saturday Sampler - pieced blocks for October
• Saturday Sampler - applique block from September
• bind the Halloween quilt
• Farm Girl Vintage blocks for October (1 big, 1 small)
• 1930s Farmer's Wife blocks (catch up - only 1 made so far)
• hand quilting finish on red Hawaiian applique
• Santa's Delivery - stretch onto canvas, and embellish with crystals

September was a pretty productive month in spite of my crazy work schedule. I managed to keep up with the BOM projects I was working on and got the Halloween quilt ready to bind. Those had been my priority projects.

• lose 5 pounds (or maybe that isn't realistic) - unrealistic!
• Rainbow Scrap Challenge - orange blocks (2 or 3) - all 3 DONE
• Saturday Sampler pieced blocks for September - DONE
• Saturday Sampler mini pieced blocks for August - DONE
• finish Minnesota wall hanging - DONE
• 2 new rows for Row By Row Experience - forgot all about this one
• Farm Girl Vintage block for Sept. - DONE
• choose backing & deliver Halloween quilt to LAQ for quilting - DONE
• yellow/grey/white baby quilt - baby was a boy, so this is on hold

Shadow Star

This is block #22 in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge sampler.  The designer calls is Shadow Star and I think that is a perfect name. Can you see the subtle dark brown shadows along the points? This month's color is brown and I will admit that my choices were a bit limited when digging through my scraps and my stash. There will be another brown block this month and I need to dig deeper to find more brown fabric.

Santa's Delivery

I am wishing that the color had turned out better on this photo. My background is a lovely periwinkel blue Fairy Frost. The laser cut silhouette applique was one of my bus trip purchases. 

My plan is to embellish this with a few tiny crystals for some sparkle and then stretch this on a canvas to hang.  No stitching involved on this little project.

Sunday Status of the Stash

Stash enhancement report is more like it because I just got home after midnight from a 2-day shop hop bus trip.  Retail therapy - plus I got to see several long distance friends while in the Black Hills - Moneik, Yvonne, Linda, and Kathy. 

I added some lovely treasures - most purchased and a couple of prizes won: 8 patterns, 1 Christmas ornament kit, 1 wall hanging kit, fabric, webbing straps for bags, more fabric.  More on some of these treasures another day . . .

In this week:  22 yds of fun

In this year:  192 yds

Out this week:  0 yds

Out this year:  159.5 yds

My status has fallen way behind. But as another blogger said today, her goal for tracking stash isn't to stay ahead of her stash, but is really to encourage use of older fabric and finishing up projects.  So I'm going to quit worrying so much about being ahead or behind of my stash and just enjoy it. 

Quilt Guild bus trip

Seven shop down and just one left to go. It's been a fun two days.  It has been raining most of the trip but the shops have all welcomed us with treats and demos and special deals.

Hand stitching

I have my Hearts and Berries block all ready to take on the bus in the morning. Hand blanket stitching while I ride and relax.