Paper piecing

I gave a demo on paper piecing at our quilt show on Friday. Now that our show is done I had a little time to sew today and decided to finish the blocks I started for the demo. The sections are all sewn and now for my least favorite part of paper piecing - picking off the foundation paper.  But it's a good activity while watching a little TV.

Monday morning I put the pillow top together and pieced the back. Now my next step is to machine quilt that top and put it together.

Sew-along bag

These bags have been on my radar for awhile because they are so cute. I've been seeing them online but when our LQS showed a sample earlier this month I just had to buy the pattern.

This one was my first one and I got the big zipper slightly off center, But I've decided that is OK. The inside of this little bag has 3 zippered pockets and I was amazed at how easily it went together. This one will be a gift.

I've not been happy with most of the bags I've made before this one because of the quality of my sewing. But I think I'll be making more of these because either I'm getting better or the instructions were excellent.

Heartland Guild Quilt Show

One day down and one more to go - of our guild's quilt show.  

Lot's of hard work goes into a show, even a small one.  We partnered this year with the local garden club and they provided some gorgeous flowers for our show.  The large quilt in this picture is my Rainbow Scrap Challenge sampler from 2015. It looks good hanging up.

Our "Featured Quilter" is a very talented lady. Karen brought us some amazing quilts (large and small) for the show.

The coffee cup quilt is the latest President's quilt to be finished. Each year the retiring president is gifted with blocks from guild members based on a theme determined by a new officer. This one with the coffee cups is just adorable. Love her layout merging 4 of the cup blocks together into larger blocks. So cute!

We also have a great assortment of small items being shown.

New FGV block

Last week a special new block for the Farm Girl Vintage series was issued by designer Lori Holt. It's a free download.  It is to celebrate a year of Farm Girl Vintage. Happy birthday!

Check it out on her blog, Bee in My Bonnet. I downloaded it from the Fat Quarter Shop website. 

I did make both versions this morning, both 12" and 6". A word of warning however - there are 52 pieces in this block. And for that 6" size that meant a whole bunch of 3/4" squares.  So the process was a little bit "putsy" but the end result was all worth it.

Traveling Stars

If I make this quilt 8 blocks by 9 blocks (88 X 99 finished) then I have enough blocks made with 1 star block to spare.  This might be big enough but I won't know until I get it put together and lay it on the bed to see how much overhang I actually have. 

These blocks will remain on the floor for the rest of the day and I'll rearrange colors as I "live with it" for awhile. Then I'll pin the vertical rows into stacks in the correct order for sewing.  Maybe I'll get at least one row sewn together later today or tomorrow in between some other commitments.

Quilt inspector is on the job

I've been working on my Traveling Stars blocks again this morning. For those who are new to my blog, the centers of the star blocks are 6" squares shared by guild members when they have traveled somewhere. It's a fun guild tradition.  Here are the most recent 10 blocks.

The quilt inspector walked over these and looked but didn't rearrange any so it must meet his approval. Now he's just settled in for a nap.

I have about 75 blocks finished now and at least 15 more squares left to use in my box. Since the blocks are 11.5" unfinished, I've decided not to sash them. Instead I'm adding a strip at the top or bottom of the vertical rows. I want an extra wide queen sized quilt so that it works like a bedspread on my queen bed. So right now I'm thinking 9 across by 10 long. No borders will be added and the quilt will end up BIG at 99 X 110.

Traveling Stars

Sunday involved more organizing than actual sewing, but I did make 3 more Traveling Star blocks. The color in this photo isn't very true but this one turned out so bright and cheery.  The square is from Taiwan and brought back by a guild member who recently visited there. 

I have several more ready to sew. And then I really need to start putting these together to make my quilt. There must be nearly enough of these blocks for a queen size quilt by now.

Farm Girl Vintage

There are 23 Farm Girl Vintage blocks done so far. These are my small 6" version but the same blccks are done in the 12" version.

I decided to lay them all out again to see if there are any colors I haven't used often enough or a color used too often.  I need more blue.  And I need more cream backgrounds since I want to mix white and cream. But overall the blocks are just too cute and there are lots more to make.

Passing it along

It always feels good to have a finish but it feels even better when the partially finished project goes to a deserving charity or other entity to finish. 

This large quilt top was finished last week and made entirely with fabric and blocks donated to me by a friend who was moving. Just this morning I passed it along to a guild member who will deliver it to a local lady who makes quilts for the VA hospital and for veterans in local nursing homes.  I told her I would get the leftover 6" strips that match to her as well.  Her friend will quilt and bind it and give it to a deserving veteran. Not an official Quilt of Valor, but still glad to share when I have more fabric than I need.

Taking the plunge

I finally got brave enough yesterday to plug in the embroidery unit to my new sewing machine. And I only broke 1 needle . . . and the thread a few times before I got going correctly.

This cute little quilted zippered bag is about 7" square. I quilted it on my embroidery hoop and added the initial.  Getting the zipper right was the hardest part of the bag.  This was project #2 from the class I took a week ago, but we only had time in class to make one of the 2 projects.  We worked with partners at each machine, with each of us completing one of the 2 bags.  

The project I did finish in class that day is this other little bag with the pinwheel cover. It is very cute and has pockets inside.

But the surprising new skill we learned that day is the ribbon stitch. So the back and the front pocket have been decorated with ribbon and another decorative stitch. The ribbon stitch is definitely something I will try again.  It was much easier than I expected, although my alignment is a bit crooked on the pocket section.

Mini quilt

Last month at Sew Vintage we learned how to do the crayon coloring on fabric and each practiced on this Prairie Pasque flower.  I turned mine into a mini quilt just using a log cabin strip design.

I love to do hand quilting on these little projects and the disappearing purple markers are my favorite thing to use to mark quilting lines. But this time some of the purple hasn't disappeared yet even after 2 days.  There are just a few little spots so I'm going to try to be patient, but usually these disappear in just a few hours. So it worries me a little bit.

Projects around the house

Yesterday afternoon and evening was a "projects" kind of day.  

My husband touched up the painted wood trim above the porch. And then we headed to Menards - just to pick up a new temperature gauge for our grill. But then I noticed patio furniture on sale and we've wanted chairs for our front porch. So we spent a good share of the evening putting together the 2 chairs and the little table. I love the comfy look of our porch now and it gives us another shady spot to sit when the back deck is too hot.

Earlier in the day - at noon the front fell off our kitchen microwave, which is built in above the stove. The plastic brackets were both broken.  The fan on that microwave quit working about a month ago.  So we went to a local appliance store in the afternoon to buy a new one and arrange for installation next week. Our appliances are all 20 years old (original to the house) and I just know they are going to start dying one at a time. 

I'm kind of hoping we are done with little projects for a bit. 

Farm Girl Vintage catch up day

Today I got caught up with the Farm Girl Vintage blocks from a Facebook group I am in.  And I got them done in both the 12" and 6" sizes.  So I've added Churn Dash, Canning Season, Haystack, and Baking Day to my collection of blocks.

Check out what other quilter's are up to today at: http://www.patchworktimes.com. 

June 5 stash report

Just before Memorial Day my sister-in-law Kathy and I made a quick road trip to Rapid City to pick up my granddaughter.  Kathy's a quilter too, so we just had to stop in a couple of quilt shops. I enhanced the stash with 5.25 yards of fun fabric. The fat quarters in front are some I picked out to used for more of the car blocks using the Row By Row license plates. The middle row will fit into my Temecula Circa 2016 project.

That wasn't my biggest sewing/quilting purchase this past couple of weeks however. I replaced my sewing machine too and am glad that I'm not counting dollars spent on quilting. But then again maybe I should be.

I used 1.25 yards of the feather fabric to cut 6" squares for my guild. And I dug into some "adopted" stash and finished a very simple large quilt top to count another 4.5 yards used this week. I need to remember to take a photo to post. I plan to donate that quilt top somewhere.  And I'm donating another 5 yards of fabric from that adopted stash to be used for a charity project at guild.

In this month: 5.25 yds

In this year: 61.25 yds

Out this month: 10.75 yds

Out this year: 63.75 yds

Sewing on my new machine

This morning I traded my "dead" sewing machine for a brand new one.  It is very similar to the one I was using so not much of a learning curve to begin with. And the bonus was that my embroidery unit works on the new one too so that saved me a few dollars. And after taking a class yesterday at The Pin Cushion, I'm feeling like I can put that unit on a play with some new skills.

Once I got it home I had to make a few blocks, so I chose the Pears block for our Farm Girl Vintage blocks for this month in Sew Vintage. And I made a new RSC16 block in the June color of aqua.  It sure feels good to be sewing again on a really good machine instead of my old back-up machine.

That's probably the end of my sewing for a couple of days as we'll have 3 of the grandkids tomorrow and then have a birthday party for 2 of the grandkids on Saturday. And I have a guild meeting on Saturday.  Busy summer so far!

Circa 2016

I'm caught up again with making the Temecula Circa 2016 blocks but I can't say that I like how all of them have turned out.

This Fox and Geese block is very cute and I'm pleased with them both.  Each week we do 2 versions of the same block and picking out the colors is half the fun.

But the other set has too many tiny HSTs and even pressing the seams open didn't help them line up. The brown one is OK but I may end up remaking the pink/grey one because it looks wonky to me.