Archives

A new love starting to kindle…

Feb21

Hello Thursday!  So glad you could make it again this week.  And thankful that you are already half-way over!

Wrapping up a lunch hour in front of my computer, trying my best to stay awake after a very long week at work.

I didn’t help myself much last night with a very late finish to the Blogger Girls BOM – Block 2 alternate block.  But I got it done!

Here’s the new block in the alternate colorway:

BG Block 2 Alt

I’m STILL cutting off a lot of those outside points !@#$!@$.  I’m going to have to figure that out before I do the next set.

Here’s the two blocks together for month two:

BG Block 2 Both

And, here are all four blocks done!  I’m actually caught up on this BOM!

BG Four Blocks

I’m using the French General fabric collection, La Belle Fleur.  The next free block pattern gets released on March 1 from Monique at Open Gate Quilts.  You can visit her blog and join in anytime.  Two blocks a month for six months.  Or just do six.  Or whatever you want – I’m not your mother.  🙂

But, to comment more on my blog header for today … I have been considering doing a quilt pattern by Kim Diehl for some time.  I love the ‘just enough folksy’ aspect of her designs.  I wouldn’t want too many really dark quilts (she uses a lot of rich, dark fabrics) – but, I could use at least one in my WIP (lol).  So… although I had browsed her books and internet pictures and such, I had not taken the plunge.  I came across this pattern yesterday in the latest Fons & Porter magazing (March/April 2013). 

Disclaimer:  I don’t know if it is illegal to show these pictures, but since I can count on my two hands the number of people who actually visit my blog – I thought I would take the chance.  Worst thing that could happen is someone will be inspired to buy a copy of the magazine.  Right?

The pattern is called “Sprigs & Twigs”:

FP Mag KD Pattern

Here’s a closeup of that picture on the right:

FP Mag KD Closeup

I LOVE those nine patch blocks that are made into the center of the four corner flowers.  And the bias stripe fabric for the stems and vines are adorable.  I felt myself getting so totally excited about this quilt.  I haven’t stopped thinking about it, so I figured it is in my future.  I have enough reproduction fabrics to make the center part, but I didn’t have anything really to be used for the black border.  Took care of that this morning with a quick order to FQS!  I have two fabrics selected from the Kansas Troubles Favorites collection.  I’ll decide which one works better on the scale of the print once I see them in person and audition them with my other fabrics.

Either this one:

Or this one:

I think I favor the top one, with the little daisies… but it may be too busy – or it may be perfect!  I’m not sure yet.  I’ll keep you posted.

I hope you find something that lights your fire today!  All the best!

Jennifer

Presidential Posting

Feb18

Happy President’s Day!  To all of you who got off work, congratulations.  Enjoy.  Really.

I technically should have been off today, but my function is such that we had to come in.  Therefore, I look forward to another day where I can stay home and quilt, quilt, quilt.  Or run errands.  Or clean the house.  Or get that mammogram that I’m overdue for.

Well, anyway…  since today is President’s Day, I thought it was fitting that I show you my completed Stars and Stripes quilt!  My MIL visited this past weekend, and early in the morning on Sunday, I stitched down the binding and handed it to her as a belated birthday/Christmas/Valentine’s Day gift.  She seemed happy to receive.  Here are the two quick snapshots I got before the quilt drove off into the sunrise (it was still pretty early when she left):

 

Stars and Stripes Finished

And my cutie patootie holding up the corner to show off the back and binding:

Stars Quilts with Oliver

Stars and Stripes pattern by Mark Lipinski, found in Fons & Porter magazine, Fall 2012.  All the fabric is the Hurrah collection by Jo Morton.  Started in October 2012, finished on Sunday, Feb 17, 2013.  Machine quilted by LiMa Sews.  You can see a couple more pictures which better highlight the quilt design from her blog.  Please visit here.  She did a really great job and I will certainly use her services again.  It is so great to get a quilt actually completed and in use.

If I were to keep count, this would probably be my fifth completed bed quilt.  I have made a crib quilt, one wall hanging, one bed runner, one quilted shawl, and two table toppers as well.  (Four out of six of those I have given to my mother.  Why is that?  Because she is so hard to buy for!!  But no bed size quilt yet!)  I have five bed quilt flimsy tops that are ready to be sent off or done on my small home machine.  Lots of WIP though!  I should probably gather a picture of each and catalog them on the site somewhere.  Someday.

Also, today is REHAB!  I pushed myself last night and this morning to finish another block in the Blogger Girl’s BOM.  Two goals with one block!  I have to make the alternate block still, but this one was a little tricky for me.  Will do better on the second block to keep those points from getting cut off in the future sashing.

BG Block 2 Done

One of the steps in this block left me with the perfect triangles to run through my machine and end up with four 3 1/2″ HSTs…

BG Block 2 Leftovers

I’ll keep them with my French General stash, for when I come across a good use for them.

Hope you had a very productive weekend, or at least fun and relaxing.  Thanks for stopping by today!

Jennifer

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Feb14

Nothing new to report on my own progress since the last post.  But, wanted to wish anyone following my blog a Happy Valentine’s Day!  I’m about to take myself out to lunch – perhaps some Shrimp Alfredo!  Yummm!!

For a beautiful inspiration though, please visit these blogs to see a spectacular quilt that will get you in the RED mood, if you aren’t already…

Cupcakes ‘n Daisies

Sister’s Choice Quilts

The Quilted Pineapple

I’m officially adding a Basket Block quilt to my bucket list!

Have a wonderful day and thanks for stopping by!

Jennifer

Some weeks are better than others

Feb7

Well, !@#$@!.  I really, really wanted to get my blocks together for the quilt top on the Avalon jelly roll project.  But, as it happens, I haven’t had a chance this week to sew for more than 15 minutes at a time.  Some days, the most progress I could muster is pressing newly attached strips on perhaps 10 blocks.  That’s it.  Like 5 minutes or less.

I’m soooo close too!  I just have to attach the last strip to my 36 blocks and then cut the setting triangles and I can start my assembly. 

As soon as I have that done, I have my eye to jump in on the STARBURST sew along hosted by Happy Quilting.  I ordered a fat 8th of Posy fabric by Aneela Hooey for Moda fabrics (along with four Bella solids that FQS pairs up with collection), and I think it will be adorable!!  The bottom fabric swatch is what I will use for the background.  CUTE! 

 

 

I also want to ‘whip up’ a little item from Sinta Borland’s (of Pink Pincushion) fabric grouping that Fat Quarter Shop is featuring this month as a Blogger’s Choice.  Aren’t these fabrics together great?  More on that later though when I actually get started on it…

Hope you are able to squeeze more time into sewing this week than I am!

Thanks for stopping by!

Jennifer

BOM Rehab – Feb 4th

Feb4

I worked on many items this weekend, but I just have a short amount of time today for blogging, so I’ll link up to Sinta’s BOM Rehab and show off my completed TREE #1 from my Away From Home BOM.  I finished up the applique of the leaves last night during the Super Bowl.  Some I needle turned and some I did on the machine.  I like the eclectic mix of the result.  You can’t really tell with this picture, given it is too far away and I think a little fingerprint has been smudged on my camera lens…

AFH Tree 1 Finished

However, I’m going to take a break this week from applique and try to complete two other projects.

1 – I have machine stitched the binding to my MIL Stars and Stripes quilt.  I need to finish it by hand sewing it to the back and add a label.  MIL is visiting us in two weeks, so I have a definite deadline!  Pictures when I’m done!

2 – I have almost finished all the blocks for my jelly roll quilt with the Avalon fabric collection.  They look great!  I can’t help myself but to square up after each round of strips though.  Slows me down, but hopefully it is worth it when I go to put it all back together.  Cheater trick, I’m going to make my final two strips about a 1/4 inch larger (they are both in the background fabric) before I sew them on.  That way, if my blocks try to come up a little short anywhere, I have the extra fabric to keep them at an exact measurement.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great week!

Jennifer

I want to do what I want to do!

Jan29

My headline is a quote taken from my 6 year old son.  I can emphasize completely, but as we grow older, we learn to compromise on our desires and our obligations.  He hasn’t mastered this yet, and honestly isn’t really trying either.  But, who can blame him.  Life is short and then you die.  No really, I do parent better than that – but it is a good transition into my post for today!

I came across this blog entry yesterday that captured the essence wonderfully.  Take a read if you have a chance.  It is from a blog called Quilting Daze.  I was either laughing out loud or shaking my head in agreement while I read it.

http://quiltingdaze.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-quilt-police.html

So, this leads me to my activities for today.  I jumped at the chance to get a jelly roll and charm pack of the newest collection from Fig Tree Quilts called AVALON.  It won’t be in stores (and when I say stores, I generally mean The Fat Quarter Shop) until March 2013.  However, I usually find the precuts showing up on eBay well before then.  I didn’t want to just sit on my new treasure too long.  I really, really wanted to do a quick jelly roll quilt and see something produced from these fresh colors immediately.  Some instant gratification!

I looked online and through my patterns at home, and decided on a quilt setting from this book:

Jelly Roll Quilts Book

Got it at a great price during a Joann sale – 40% off this week!

I picked a flower block that is assembled much like a log cabin block from the book and started cutting and sewing…

Avalon Cuttings

Most of these strips are combined with a white/background square on one end and then trimmed corner to corner.  I recently watched a Fons & Porter Love of Quilting episode where they shared tips on stitching these little leftovers and made a little doll blanket out of them.  So I thought I would try to make use of my scrap corners too!

Scrap Recycling

Starting from the top right corner and moving clockwise… I had the strips sewn, trimmed the corners off, kept the fabric together and ran them through the machine, then pressed to the printed fabric and trimmed them down to 1 3/4 ” square.  Notice what my leftovers look like now.  Barely enough threads in that pile to even save for my stuffing bag.

A great tool I used for this was the Fit to be Quarter 2.5 ruler from Open Gate Quilts.  I got it with my purchase of another ruler from their site for the Blogger Girls BOM project.  It worked GREAT for this task.

Fit to be Quarter 2.5

Here is what I did with my little half square triangle units!

Avalon Pinwheels

Aren’t they ADORABLE?  They are 3″ square, unfinished.  And I LOVE this fabric – did I say that already?

Here is my initial block, which took a bit of a back seat to my pinwheel project – so I only have one made so far:

Avalon Block

These will be set on point and I will use all but 4 strips from my jelly roll and I had all but 1 yard of background fabric in my stash for it already.  I’m using Bella Porcelain solid as the background.

I’ll finish up today with a look at my design wall as of this morning.  I even added a couple more leaves to my AFH tree!

Design Wall 01-29-2013

I definitely did what I wanted to do for sure this past weekend.  I hope to continue that this week, because I’m loving my new project.  Also, can’t wait for the next block from the Blogger Girls BOM to be released on Friday!

Have a great week and thanks for stopping by!

Jennifer

Very productive weekend!

Jan28

Oh my, I have so much to share that I can actually spread it across a few posts this week. 

The first item up for discussion is that my Stars and Stripes quilt is back from the quilter!  Yippee!

Before picture:

MIL Stars and Stripes Flimsy Finish!

MIL Stars and Stripes Flimsy Finish!

I selected LiMa Sews to do the longarm quilting.  I had been following her blog for awhile (link here to Elvy Crafts blog), and recently she announced her quilting services.  I believe she and her husband are doing this in partnership, which is great!  I picked the obvious choice of pantograph for the quilt (Stars and Loops) and sent it off to Linh to get her going.

Quick turnaround and the quilting is beautiful!  Perfect job.  And the return package was just as nice too…

MIL Quilt Returned

Tied up in a perfect navy ribbon and packaged in a brown paper wrap inside the box, with my extra backing strips neatly folded and tucked within. 

 

MIL Quilt Returned 2

Cute as can be!  Here is the link to her website for the longarm services. 

LiMa Sews

It feels really good to get a quilt top converted into a quilt, for sure.  I even got the binding strips done and clipped onto the quilt for sewing this week.  Once that is done, I’ll take some final pictures outside on a good sunny day and post them.  Hopefully I can capture the quilting design well in the pictures.

Sneak peak for tomorrow…  Avalon strips!  I opened my new jelly roll in record time!

Avalon Strips

Happy Monday!  Thanks for stopping by today!

Jennifer

 

Snails pace…

Jan24

It has occurred to me that anyone who takes valuable time out of their day to read my blog may feel as though they are watching paint dry.  Compared to my favorite bloggers, who seem to be able to whip out quilts every week if they wanted, my pace is much more …. um…. excruciating.  For me as well.  I long for the days where I can work more than 15 minutes without interruption, or heaven forbid!, an entire weekend just dedicated to my little hobby.  But then, I would miss out on the growth of my children, and I would surely regret that later.

So … in my effort to spice this up a bit … here is my latest installment of the first Tree block.  Yes – there will be another!

Here’s the tree right now, with leaves temporarily glued in place:

Tree status 01-24-2013

And here are the remaining leaves for this tree getting trimmed down and preparing for the starch applique method:

Leaves Prepped 1

These were already trimmed up, just waiting for the starch and iron:

Leaves Prepped 2

 

And a final, wide shot of my ironing board with all my leaves, and supplies staged for the picture.

Applique Layout

 

Funny story about my ironing board cover… I found a tutorial through one of my favorite blogs, Sister’s Choice Quilts, and thought I would make my own fitted cover.  I got as far as deciding on my fabric and laying it out on the board to make sure it was large enough and decided… eh, this is good enough!  Fabric choice is a print from Hometown (or was it Reunion?) by Sweetwater. 

But after using the board a LOT for this applique project, I decided to wash the fabric with the intention on actually finishing the cover.  Well, in those spots I had done a lot of ironing and starching, the fabric just disintegrated!  So I refolded it so that those areas were underneath the visible side.  Therefore, I have decided to wait until I want to buy two yards of a canvas weight fabric and start it over again.  Guess it wasn’t that funny.  Oh well!

Have a great Thursday!

Jennifer

Just another Tuesday

Jan23

Hi there!  Thought I would drop off a couple of thoughts for the day.

Would you like a kitchen update?  Well, apparently I have been told that our house now smells like tar (I’m just about to leave work, so that’s the news from home).  Effort was made today to prepare the floor for the new construction.

Kitchen 01-22-2013

This was the floor today, after they ‘cleaned it’ and before pouring new tar on top.  They are leaving an 8 inch wide strip around half of the perimeter of the room, when (in my non-construction knowledged opinion), it would be obvious to take out ALL the floor first and do it fresh and not try to match up to anything else.  But, hey – that’s why I’m an accountant and not a builder of homes.

One positive that will come out of this is fresh paint in the kitchen and the removal of this border that went around the entire room…

Kitchen Border 01-22-2013

It just SCREAMS 80’s — right?  Yes it does.  Unfortunately, it is also in the bathroom, which isn’t getting painted right now.

One other item I would like to share tonight is a blog that was started at the beginning of this year by a woman named Tracee who works for McCall’s Quilting (if I’m remembering correctly).  She is on a journey to make 36 quilts in 2013, and blog about it and the special recipients along the way.  I am finding it very interesting to read – but you miss a lot if you don’t keep up each day!  She is making good progress, and these aren’t just little table toppers either.  Her goal is to do it all, including the longarm quilting.  Have a look! 

http://dailydog.typepad.com/my-blog/

I did get a few more leaves put on my tree last night and I’m prepped with the freezer paper for 5 more.  Perhaps I’ll finish one tree this week after all!

Enjoy your evening and thanks a lot for stopping by!

Jennifer