Five Shadows

Complications kept me from shopping this past week. Hopefully I’ll make it out the door today to LQS. I also need to drop off my machine for a tune up and cleaning.

I’m taking part in the Project Quilting Season 12 Challenge. This Sunday the third challenge was announced. Virtual Vacation.

My family and I have been talking about doing a trip up to Northern Michigan – visiting light houses along Lake Michigan coast line, Sleeping Bear Dunes, and Traverse City Botanical Gardens. The Gardens are of interest because I learned they have a Fairy Trail there. My granddaughter is at the age where she is all about fairies.

For PQ 12.3 Virtual Vacation Challenge I made a Fairy Pillow for my granddaughter.

Here is the backside of stitching completed for the pillow.

And the front -

I traced a coloring page for the fairy then stitched over the lines, filled in her wings. I added fused & stitched flowers and vine for her to be in a pretty garden.

Close up of our charming little fairy.

Close up of free form flowers.

Pinks and purples are granddaughter’s favorite colors right now so pink & purple it is for this 16″ pillow. All stitching is with Aurifil 50# threads. The Fossil Fern fabrics are left over from a quilt I made for her bed.

I bombed on my To-Do list. Hopefully this week will be much better.

Last Week’s To-Do List:

1. Shop for fabric?  ✗ Change of weather brought on three days of migraine suffering. Snow was lovely!
2. Start layout and stitching Clam Shells in place  ✗  decided to make one more row of clam shells

This Week’s To-Do List:

1. Make more Clam Shells
2. Since Janome is in for a cleaning, I’ll dig out the old Bernina and see how she is doing.

Linking to To-Do Tuesday and Project Quilting.

In 2019, I followed along with Jacquelynne Steves, Happy Little Things BOM. I choose to use hand embroidery for the flower in the center of each block. I used scrap whites for background fabrics for the flowers.

The rest of the quilt was pieced using a Fat Eight pack of Carolyn Friedlander’s Friendlander line of fabric. This was purchased from Crimson Tate quilt shop in Indianapolis, IN. Finishing this quilt was my OMG for March.

Scrappy binding using up bits of the fabric pack.

The back is pieced from the fabric pack too!

Quilt measures 30″ x 36 1/2″.

It’s my new Spring quilt hanging in my living room.

Linking to One Monthly Goal hosted by Patty of Elm Street Quilts.

For February, I’ll be working towards completing the 2019 Happy Little Things BOM hosted by Jacquelynne Stevens.

I hand embroidered the flower motif for the center of each of the 4 blocks.

Using Carolyn Friedlaner fabrics, I built the block around the embroidered center.

Each block needs to be sashed. Once sewn together, there are two borders to complete. My plan is to get the top all pieced. If all goes well, maybe I’ll even sandwich, quilt, and bind. This will be a nice quilt to display in my living room this Spring.

What are you working on this month? Check out everyone else’s plans at Elm Street Quilts.

Linking to One Monthly Goal.

Merry Christmas!

Happy Holidays!

Season’s Greetings!

For December’s OMG I planned on keeping up with Helen Godden’s 24 day Christmas Countdown Quilt Along.

Success!

I did keep up with the daily quilting, which was just a little bit each day. Then Christmas Eve was also quilting the background.

Christmas Day I finished with the binding before family came over to Celebrate Christ’s Birth.

In December, I also wanted to make six small quilt gifts for my quilting friends.

I used part of the Christmas Countdown Quilt Along design to create six little quilts.

I made little ‘pillow cases’ and slipped them over clear plastic free standing picture frames.

The Merry Christmas is hand embroidered.

The yellow flame, holly berries, and outline of holly leaf are colored with Sharpie markers.

These were really fun to make!

Happy New Year, All!

Linking to One Monthly Goal hosted by Patty of Elm Street Quilts.

This week filled up with lots of doing, but not much quilting. Here are just a few things I did get to this week.

First, I had to tackle my messing sewing room since I couldn’t get to the cutting mat to continue with Bat Moon Rising!

I did get the mat cleared off, but not the rest of the counter top to the right of the mat.

Anyway, that gave me room enough to cut out more Bat Moon Rising pieces.

I only got a little bit of piecing completed.

Sunday was a day spent with family. Birthday celebration and a Train Show. Our granddaughter thought the Hodges Hand Cars was the best part of the Train Show. Here she is riding a Hand Car.

You turn that wheel round and round to go around the track. She thought it was great fun. Husband thought it was great exercise and a fun way for kiddos to run off some of their energy! LOL

Our grandson, not yet big enough for the Hand Car, sure enjoyed watching the bigger kids!

He stood there going “whoo whoo!” He loves anything with wheels and loves to imitate the sounds too.

Woot! I finished stitching Dropcloth Sampler last night.

I’ll figure out how to frame it, most likely an embroidery hoop, after Thanksgiving. I’ll try to remember to keep an eye out for a hoop while shopping this weekend.

Next up – Thanksgiving baking! Remember those Pumpkin Dinner Rolls I posted last Tuesday? I’m making them today, and putting together the dressing. The turkey is defrosting in the fridge.

I hope you are all enjoying gearing up for the Holidays!

Last To-Do List:

1. Continue with Curve it Up quilting ✗
2. Keep piecing Bat Moon Rising ✔️
3. Piecing block 4 of Happy Little Things ✗
4. Finish Satin Stitch in the Dropcloth Sampler ✔️

To Do List:

1. Thanksgiving baking, cooking!
2. Enjoying Thanksgiving with family and friends.
3. Make and mail a little snowman mug rug for my SIL.
4. Any quilting or piecing I might find time for this Thanksgiving week

Linking to To-Do Tuesday hosted by Home Sewn by Us.

Bat Moon Rising is coming along. I’m using an ombre fabric for the background, which means more fussing with placement of the fabric.

I’ve started with light background around the moon and will work into the darker fabric as I move away from the moon. This is a Sew Kind of Wonderful pattern from the Mini Wonderful Curves book.

Happy Little Things: Block 4 embroidery is all stitched up. I’ll be using the fabrics shown for piecing the block.

I didn’t think I got much hand work done this week, but when I pulled out Happy Little Things last night, I only had a little bit of stitching to complete the design. Plus, since I took a road trip last Friday, which included stopping at a new-to-me quilt shop, I bought larger embroidery needles that worked well with the Perle Cotton.

With Thanksgiving in the USA just around the corner, I’m dreaming of making these cute pumpkin rolls for dinner – and use them as part of the table decorations.  Or this version. Maybe both, since I have some vegans in the family.

(photo from Handle the Heat)

Do you have any special recipes that always make it to your dinner table during the Holidays?

Last To-Do List:

1. Continue quilting Curve it Up ✔️ I didn’t get much done, but any progress is better than none.
2. More fabric cutting, then start piecing Bat Moon Rising ✔️ I’m happy with the out come so far!
3. Hand embroidery in the evenings ✔️Finished block four of Happy Little Things, but didn’t get to Dropcloth Sampler.

To Do List:

1. Continue with Curve it Up quilting
2. Keep piecing Bat Moon Rising
3. Piecing block 4 of Happy Little Things
4. Finish Satin Stitch in the Dropcloth Sampler

Linking to To-Do Tuesday sponsored by Home Sewn by Us.

Last week I quilted my friend’s Crazy 9-Patch quilt. Here is a close up of some of the quilting.

I met up with her Friday, and she liked the quilting on the 9-Patch and the Cherry quilt which I worked on the previous week.

I got the idea for the cherries from Lori Kennedy. Lori has a lovely blog where she demonstrates her many FMQ motifs.

I had a big “Oops!” while quilting on the cherry quilt! I thought the stitching took on a different feel. So I stopped and took a look at the back.

Yep. The back and batting got turned under and caught in the stitching. At least it was not too many stitches to rip out and fix! Has this ever happened to you?

Hand embroidery: Evenings after supper is when I try to fit in some hand stitching. But not so much this past week. With the weather turning cooler and evenings growing longer, I should be finding more stitching time this Fall & Winter.

The little I did do this week was on an old sampler.

This is a Dropcloth sampler I bought through Etsy a few years back.

Since I’m still so new to hand embroidery and don’t know many of these stitches, I’ve been watching youtube to learn them. I think I’m coming along ok with this new skill.

New quilt: This is a photo from Sew Kind of Wonderful’s book Mini Wonderful Curves.

The quilt is titled Bat Moon Rising, and I think it will be perfect for a friend expecting her first baby.

Bat and moon pieces are all cut. I’m using an ombre (not shown) for the background, so that might require some thoughtful cutting.

How was your week? What do you have planned for this coming week?

Last To-Do List:

1. Quilting friend’s quilt.  ✔️ Basted, quilted, delivered!
2. Evening hand embroidery.  ✔️Just some stitches completed on an older sampler.

To-Do List:

1. Quilting Curve it Up, my One Monthly Goal for November. I spray basted it yesterday. Get to the quilting.
2. We have guests coming this weekend. I’ve got to do some house cleaning and meal prep.
3. Work on piecing Bat Moon Rising if time allows.

Linking to To-Do Tuesday hosted by Home Sewn by Us.

That UFO. I’ve finished the straight line quilting in the pieced blocks, and have moved on to the curved quilting.

This is a quilt for my son and his lovely wife, I shared about here. It’s all marked for the curved quilting.

I cut a three inch circle from card stock  and grabbed a Sewline white ceramic lead marking pencil. Then traced around the circle to mark the curves within the brown squares.  I can continuous line quilt through the brown squares from one side of the quilt to the other. After the quilting is completed in the brown squares, there are just 2 borders to quilt. Phew! The end is in sight!

Another project all marked and ready to go is October’s block 3 of Happy Little Things BOM. I’m embroidering the center of each block.

Next step, select the embroidery floss for this month.

Here’s September’s block 2 all completed.

Happy Little Things do make me happy!

Last To-Do List:

1. Finish September’s Happy Little Things block ✔️
2. progress on son’s wedding quilt ✔️

To-Do List:

1. Stay focused on son’s quilt!
2. Lego building with son and DIL – I’ll share about that next week.

Linking to To-Do Tuesday

The block I’m currently working on from the Bird Song Sing-A-Long pattern is called Rock’n Robin.

Mr. Robin needs an eye, and some dimension added to his wings and tail feathers. Plus some water droplets splashing out of the birdbath.

The second pattern for the Happy Little Things BOM was released, and I got it started.

Traced, fabrics selected, and embroidery underway.

Also this week, I made headway on my One Block Wonder hexie panel quilt. Read about it here. If you have not seen OBW panel quilts, go to Pinterest and search for One Block Wonder with Panels to see some amazing quilts!

Baby time!

I got to play with this cutie this week.

He loves anything with wheels! I pulled out his dad’s old wooden train set and he played happily for over an hour with it! Who says toddlers have short attention spans!?

I have a few toys here from our children’s childhoods. Our adult children mostly took what they wanted with them, got rid of a few things, and I kept a few. It amazes me how this train kept his interest for so long! I pulled it out once for his older sibling, and she had no interest in it at all.

Do you have a favorite childhood toy or memory? I still have a very warn & loved stuffed kitty-cat.

Last To-Do List:

1. Finish Rockin’ Robin Block,  ➤  worked on but not finished
2. Work on Hexie Panel quilt ✔️

To-Do List:

1. Same as last week, finish Rockin’ Robin Block
2. Work on Hexie Panel quilt

Linking to To-Do Tuesday hosted by Home Sew by Us.

Last week’s goals, I finished the Fence Rail Star quilt, which was also my August One Monthly Goal.

Wonky Star label.

And I finished this little cutie embroidery quilt block design by Jacquelynne Steven called Happy Little Things.

I’m using Friedlander fabric by Carolyn Friedlander for the pieced blocks. I used scraps of floss, various brands, for the embroidery.

I started working on a 2018 Row by Row quilt. Have you heard of the Row by Row Experience? Have you collected any of the free patterns? You have to visit participating quilt shops between June 21st and September 3rd to pick up a copy of their free Row by Row pattern. This year’s theme is Taste the Experience.

Back to what I’m doing. I hopped around on the web to see what shops are doing out of my area. I found that back in 2018 Susan Rooney designed 8 individual patterns for 8 New York quilt shops for the Sew Musical theme. The finished quilt is Birdsong Sing-A-Long. I bought the pattern and 2 kits.

I finished “Hummin’ a Tune or Two” Quilt-As-You-Go method, and machine appliquéd the Hummers and flower.

I also have the background ready for “Rockin’ Robin” and I’m working on tracing and cutting out Mr. Robin and his birdbath. The 2 blocks will be finished at 18″ square. 4 more blocks will also be 18″ square and 2 will be 12″ x 27″ to make a 48″ x 54″ quilt.

That’s it for this week. How did your week go?

Last To-Do List:

1. Quilt borders of Fence Rail Star quilt & bind!  ✔️ Finished! Take a look here.
2. Finish embroidery block  ✔️It so cute! I’m looking forward to the next block release.

Linking to To-Do Tuesday hosted by Home Sewn By Us.