Five Shadows

Funky Monkey fabric by Moda. One pillow case, one jammy bottom child size 2, and one size 6.

Two ponchos. Child size 6 made from pre-quilted fabric.  Child size 4 made from 54″ wide fabric, lined.

I searched back to my years long ago in garment making to put a nice finished touch to the seams of the pre-quilted poncho. The photo above shows the finished look where one side of the inside seam allowance is trimmed to 1/4 inch, and using remaining 5/8 inch seam allowance, turn under to cover the seam and top stitch. You see the top stitching on the outside of the garment. I’m pointing to the top stitching on the red outside, and to the covered seam of the inside of the poncho.

To finish the inside seam of the hood, I used the bias-covered method. I made a single fold bias strip from a coordinating fabric, trimmed the seam allowance, and top stitched the bias strip over the seam allowance. The following picture shows the outside top stitching.

The lighting is not the best in these photos. But I think you can see the garments ok. I used bias binding to finish the outside edge of the hood, the hem of the poncho and for the ties at the neckline. I have not made a garment in years! And I have to say I had fun with these projects! But I think I’ll stick with quilting for my main outlet in sewing!

What a pretty white December we are having here in NE Indiana! It is continuing to snow flurry with maybe an inch of snow on the way today.

This quilt is a woodland winter scene panel with hour glass blocks in three fabrics pieced around it. Deb of Fabric and Friends Quilt Shop has a huge selection of panels and asked me to ‘do something with them.’ I’ll be sharing them  with you this month.

December greeted us with snow flurries and it has flurried on and off for 6 days now! We only have about one inch of snow, but it is pretty!

This quilt top  Santa’s Surprises, is a shop model for Fabric and Friends Quilt Shop,

126 West Second Street, Roanoke, IN 46783 Phone: 260.676.2149. Pattern was a free download. (Not one of my favorite, and a quilt top that could benefit from quilting.) (And why won’t my words go below the picture like I want them?)

Here is a fun quilt I recently made for a new quilt shop in my area.  Fabric and Friends Quilt Shop, Roanoke, IN.  Love the shop! Owner Deb Roehm has an eye for decorating and she has a huge selection of fabrics. Wool, fleece, flannel, batiks, and of course many lines of quilters fabrics! All in a lovely old Victorian House on Second Street. This quilt is hanging, part on the wall & part on the ceiling in what Deb calls her ‘batik’ room. Pattern by Blue Meadow Designs, Monkey Business Baby Quilt, Finished size: 38″ x 47″.

While at the International Quilt Festival, back in April, I was able to take one of the Make It University! Workshops. These classes are offered by Cloth Paper Scissors and are held on the main floor in the vendors area, you win a seat in the classes by lottery. I put my name in the pot for two, but only made it in to one – Leilani Pierson‘s Small Stitch Flower Book. This was a flower pounding project. And did we ever pound! Noisy! So much noise that one of the ladies in the demo area came over to complain! One class participant had her thinking cap on and suggested we move down to the carpet to pound! We all did and the sound was muffled. Happy us, happy demo people! Leilani was so impressed that all her students just got down on our hands and knees and continued to work on our books. Leilani is a very sweet lady and great teacher!  Thanks for the fun class Leilani! I love my little booklet!

Here are pictures of my finished Flower Book:

Once I got home from the  quilt show, I looked up blogs of some of the people I met. Leilani had hosted a ‘follow me blind‘ challenge back in January. I decided to not look at those posts, but to save them for later when I could do the challenge. In May, I followed her instructions doing one step a day for three days – here are the results. (If you want to do the challenge yourself – don’t look at mine – go to this link instead!)

Day 1: Make a little rectangle quiltlet.

Day 2: Fold the rectangle in half and stitch ends together. (Day 3, I decided this was the front.)

And this is the back.

Day 3: Involved bending wire. Which I decided to embellish. I didn’t have any thin wire, so Hubby helped to bend the shape for me.

Put it all together and you get this:

Thanks for the fun challenge Leilani!

I did lots of looking at vendor booths while at the quilt show and bought a few things. I also hung out at the demo area and got to meet several artists published in Cloth Paper Scissors and Quilting Arts Magazines. Talking with these gals and seeing their work up close was great!  Kelli Nina Perkins gifted me with one of her cloth-paper book marks (thanks again Kelli!)

The first booth I went to was the Misty Fuse booth, I pulled along several friends to that booth and told them how much I love that stuff! I bought a Goddess Sheet and was given a few samples for bringing along my friends! They did make purchases and the Misty Fuse Gal (sorry, I don’t remember her name ) said what a great start to her day because of us! Doors opened at 10:00 and we had made our Misty Fuse purchases by 10:20!  I also bought some dyed cheese cloth from Embellishment Village. What a fun booth! And used a pink piece in the above Follow Me Blind challenge.

This was my first Quilt Festival to attend in Chicago, altho I have wanted to go for years! Our local quilt shop, Pieced Together, hosted a bus trip. What a fun way to travel with a bus full of quilting ladies! It’s funny because once there, I found out the festival is planning to move to Cincinnati next year! I hope to go to next year too, as I live right in between Chicago and Cincinnati in Indiana!

My Christmas Cactus is blooming!

Happy June everyone!

This is my one finish for the month of May with OPAM sponsored Peg and Kris. This is a year long challenge to finish at least one project a month and then post it  on your blog. Of course if you are making more than one project a month, you share those as well. I’ve had a very slow month.

I bought this pattern from vendor Kaye Moore, while at the International Quilt Festival, Chicago, in April.

I changed it up just a bit by hand stitching yo-yo hearts to the background fabric and free motion stitching the saying.

I really love how this turned out! I am not a hand embroiderer, so I’m very tickled by my attempt at those french knots! This was playing and I hope to do more, learning hand embroidery!  The idea to free motion machine stitch the saying came from Rebecca Sower’s red thread sessions. Altho I have done free motion quilting, I’d never done free motion writing, but once I saw Rebecca’s session # 3, I knew that was how I would apply the saying for this project. (Thanks for the inspiration Rebecca!) And the last bit about this piece is the fabric is all from a swap/challenge hosted by Melissa of Ardea’s Nest. 8 of us swapped fabric and then use a piece of each of the fabrics in one project. I used the fabrics to make the heart yo-yos. Thanks for hosting the sawp/challenge Melissa! It was fun being a part of it and I’m just plain-o tickled with my piece!

And, I just kept playing with the hearts – this piece is not finished yet. I know, I need to learn some other embroidery stitches.

(Photography by Noel Schutt. Thanks son!)

I joined Melissa of Ardea’s Nest in a swap challenge. There are eight of us playing. We have all swapped fat quarters, FQ, (we have one fat quarter from each lady, equaling 8 total.) And now the challenge is to use at least a recognizable piece of each FQ altogether in one project. Here are the fabrics I have received:

Can you recognize the fabrics in these hearts?

I have a plan for these yo-yo hearts using a pattern I purchased from vendor Kaye Moore while at the International Quilt Festival in Chicago last month.

But sorry, no photos to show. I hate excues, but here I go: PROM!!!!  I’m the coordinator this year and all this week has been nothing but getting everything finalized and squared away for the Prom tomorrow night!

I’ll leave you with this one teaser. This is step one of a three step ‘follow me blind’ challenge.

Actually, as a little quiltie, I could count this as a finish as is!

Hoping tomorrow I’ll have my finished work to show you!

This is what our garden looked like a week ago. We had an early morning sleet that did not damage the Spring flowers. And today it is in the 80s. What happened to Spring!?

White Trillium (Trillium grandiflorum)

Toadshade Trillium (Trillium sessile)

budding White Trillium

Celandine Poppy

Dutchman’s-Breeches

Photos taken by my son, Noel.