A bit of mish mash going on

 Hello Everyone,

Hope you all are well and enjoying your days. It's a typical dry, warm summer day here. The temps have been bouncing between the low 80s to mid 90s, so not TOO hot.... but hot enough!

I've been doing some of this and that for the past few months in the sewing room, not a lot, but some.

I finished Charlotte Hawks scrappy mystery quilt, the top that is. (Sorry for the indoor picture, but it's pretty windy outside right now.) This was A LOT of fun! Thank you Charlotte!

I had a squirrel pop up on my table a month or so ago too. This is Checkerboard, by Lori Holt. It's a small top, just right for a little girl. Another fun scrappy quilt.

I noticed my strip pile was getting out of hand, so I decided to use my 1.5" strips and make some small Lone stars. I love making Lone stars, and haven't made any in quite some time.

I'm having fun making these too! The not so fun part is the background, of course. Lots of Y-seams. Which I can do, they just aren't as fun as the stars :)

These finish up around 10" square. This background is actually quite bright, this picture is a little dark. And I wasn't sure if I wanted a whole quilt this color. So I pulled out a dusky pink and will alternate the pink and blue. I think it will look great.

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In other quilty news. I was slightly disappointed as I had ASSUMED something that wasn't right. I had read the Jolly Jabber (Fat Quarter news) and had thought that when they said the June box was "plain peachy keen", I was hoping that meant there was some of Cori Yoders yummy fabric by that name in it. I got the box today and found it was some lovely fabric by Fig tree and Co. instead. This box has some nice things in it, a fun ruler and pins/needles. So all is well and I am happy with this birthday gift to myself.  I haven't bought a Sew Sampler box in a few years.

My sweet friend Carol sent me a few much needed rulers (something I dont' often buy myself) and this pattern, which I have been wanting every since it came out!! Thank you again my friend.

This is Sweetwaters Hello Spring pattern. And all of you who know me, know I love these bright, happy Sweetwater colors. This pattern looks fun as it's a mix of regular piecing and applique/embroidery.

My DD bought me this book:

It's all about taking one pattern and making  a variety of different bags with it, depending on what materials you use and how you embellish it. You all know I love making bags, so this will be fun to read and work with. She also bought me some faux leather and some bag hardware. So a new bag will be in my future :)

Now, to just get into the sewing room more and get some things done!

Thanks for stopping by.

Dorian

Progress on two projects

 Hello Everyone,

I hope you are all having a nice Spring. Ours is pretty typical: snow, sun, Tstorms, sun, rain, repeat :) The flowers are all starting to bloom, the redbud is blooming as is the lavender. The grass is green and trees are leafing out. Such a beautiful time of year.

I've been steadily working on the Scrappy mystery quilt from Charlotte Hawks. She has been giving us clues once a month for the past four months. Here is my progress.

The lighter gray is the background. The bit darker gray and red is what she calls borders. I didn't use any gray/black or red in the blocks, so as not to distract with the background/borders the same color.

Block 1: That darker gray was supposed to be black, but... it isn't really.

Block 2:

Block 3: the lighter gray is the background

Block 4: The next few blocks will look similar, but have a few small differences.

Block 5:

Block 6:

We have one more block that is partial completed, finishing clue is next month, so I'll show it when it's done. Then I think we'll be putting it all together.

I have to say, I am having a LOT of fun with this quilt!! I have 3 small drawers that have my scraps that are less then 1/4 yrd, but bigger than 5". So I've been cutting triangles as I go. Trying to get a lot of variety. The only problem with that is....

I have MORE triangles now to deal with, ugh!! I have a baggy full of triangles, one day I keep telling myself I do something with them, but still haven't gotten around to it. Although I have saved a few patterns that deal with scrappy triangles.

The other pattern I'm working on is Edyta's birthday quilt. This is a series of 6" blocks, one a week for most of the year. With a few bonus blocks thrown in, so far they have been applique.

Blocks 1-6 (they all need to be pressed and trimmed)

Blocks 7-12

Blocks 13-16 plus one bonus block. Those sweet hearts is the bonus block, I haven't done the first bonus block yet.

I'm having a lot of fun with this quilt too. I've never done a sampler type quilt, but I am having fun picking out the fabrics for each block. The fabric is from Corey Yoder, and I really love this fabric line! The blue comes from one of her other lines, so it goes really well with the other colors.

So this is what I've been doing, mostly. Just puttering on these blocks and starting a few other little scrappy projects.

Have a great day, thank you for stopping by.

Dorian

On my sewing table

And what a messy table it is!  Hello Everyone,

As you can see, I have a few projects on going here. Having lots of fun with them all.

This one is the scrappy mystery project from Charlotte Hawks Quilts. This is only one of the blocks we have done so far.

I'm working on clue #3 right now. It's fun playing with all these scraps!

This lovely pile of fabrics is Buttercup and Slate, by Corey Yoder. And the bottom blue is from Corey also, it's from her Peachy Keen line. My best online quilting buddy, Pat from the scrapatch, gifted it to me :) It's the perfect background for those lovey grays, yellows and greens.

I'm using the above stack in Edyta Sitars birthday mystery quilt. Here is my stack of the first 10 blocks.

Edyta is doing one block a week, for most the year. So my first sample type quilt. There is some embroidery blocks thrown in as bonus blocks too.

This sweet pile is for a project bag swap we are doing on the QATW forum. I am loving how this is turning out!

I am not so happy with this next project. I started doing it EPP fashion, but was unhappy with my whip stitching, so took it out and sewed it together with my machine. As you can see, the outer ring is a bit bigger than it should be, it's just basted on, so it will be easy to take off and see if I can fix it. Not sure how though...

This is called Sugar plum by Judy Newman. The rose is going to be the middle and then there will be some outer pieces to make the block square. I can see I need to be better at my 1/4 inch seams...I'm guessing that's why my outer block came out larger than it should be. Pat had some template material and she generously traced the shapes out for me and sent the templates along. She rightly thought that this would be an intriqueing block for me :)

I'm enjoying some lovely sunny days. I get afternoon sun in my sewing room and I love sitting in there with the radio softly playing, while I play with my fabric.

Have a lovely weekend! And thanks for stopping by.

Dorian

A scrappy New Year

 Good morning Everyone,

I can't believe it's already into Feb. The days are just flying by, although they are not busy days. How does that work? lol So a Happy belated New Year to you all, I hope it's a good one for you.

I've been working with my scraps a lot lately. It started at the end of last year with these little 9-patches.

These are made with my 1.5" square scraps. I had made a little lap quilt with some black scraps earlier last year, and wanted to work with them some more.

With this pattern, I wanted to see if I could use up some of my triangle scraps. I have a lot of these, and tend to just leave them in a baggie and not use them. But most of my triangle scraps were the wrong size for this design. So I used some larger squares and cut them on the diagonal, matching the colors in the 9-patch.

This is also a small lap size. With a border it would make a nice wheel chair sized quilt. I was happy to use the last of this beautiful black with flowers fabric scrap on the outside.

Then I took out these tiny triangle scraps.

These are from a quilt a few years ago that used a square put on the corner of a larger square, and made a triangle in the corner. Like when doing a snowball block. The white with swirls is from my favorite Sweetwater line, so I couldn't throw them away :) Once trimmed, they are 1.5" HST's.

I was going to make them into a mug rug. I was going to keep it for myself, something sweet to look at. But then, as I was sewing, the little pieces said they wanted to be part of something else....

I then had to add a pretty little flower and butterfly... I love adding bits of embroidery/applique to things.

then I turned it into this sweet little bag. Side 1

Side 2

And now it has some yummy sweet treats in it, and is going to be flying off to live with a dear friend instead  of staying home with me :)

I love making little gifts like this.

I also decided to make the scrappy mystery quilt from Charlotte Hawks. She is using lots of triangles. I was, again, hoping to use some of my scrappy triangles, but mostly the triangles the pattern uses are much larger then what I have saved. 

But that's ok, as I have lots of under 1/4 yard scraps that are easily cut into these triangles.

This is the first blocks. Very scrappy. The red and the dark gray are the constants, something to mellow out all the scrappiness a bit.

This is a once a month clue pattern... sigh~ I hate waiting for the next clue, but I am enjoying playing with these scraps.

Have a lovely day, thank you for dropping by,

Dorian

Christmas

 Hello All,

I've been busy making Christmas gifts. A few bags, a few place mats. An ornament and mug rug. Little things to let  friends and family know I'm thinking of them. I didn't get pictures of most of them though. Sometimes I forget the camera when I'm getting gifts made, wrapped and ready to send.

I had a lot of fun with this gift. It's a little family tree for my Mom. I have three sisters, so our names are in the trees. Then our children, and the few great-grands are on there as well (no names showing for privacy). This pattern is in a Country Christmas book from years ago. 

The embroidered names was all my idea, it's not in the pattern. And the saying above the trees I changed. I had such fun with this project!

I started learning EPP this year also (Carol, if you haven't opened your gift yet, don't look at the next picture 😉 ). I put this together for Carol, the two flowers are EPP. I had a lot of fun with this one too and will be doing more EPP in the future.

Now that the gifts are made, I need to find a new project. I cut out a few more of these flowers and I'll see how many I get made this year. Maybe I'll do a bunch and make a quilt like this one, we'll see.

And now I'll wish you all a very...

And a wonderful New Year!

Thank you for stopping by and giving me an occasional comment.

Dorian

Happy Thanksgiving

 Wishing you all a very Happy Thanksgiving! I hope your day is filled with good fellowship and good food.

Have a wonderful day, and thanks for stopping by from time to time.

Dorian

Yah, a finish!

 Hello All,

I finally have a big finish. I've been really lax this year in the sewing room. Have gotten a few small finishes in here and there and made a few tops. But I haven't done a whole lot else.

Then I decided I needed to get one of my very good friends a quilt. We've been 'online' friends for many, many years and she's never received a quilt from me, so I thought this will be the year. I had decided this a month or so ago.

So I dug thru my quilt tops and found this one. This was a swap on my quilt forum, QATW. 

We each made some blocks, and sent one or two of them to everyone else, and had a few of our own as well. 

Then I found this top, one of my favorites. It's Calico Rose from Wedding Dress blues. And I thought it would be a good fit with the swap quilt top. 

This one was a bit smaller, so I had to add some borders to get it up to size. This white is perfect for my friend, as those 'balls' are balls of yarn and B is a crocheter :)

What I didn't realize, until I had taken these pictures, is that some of the stars are so light that they fade into the background SIGH~ There is such a big contrast between the dark ones and the light ones. Oh well, it's a scrap happiness, right??! 

The reason I put two tops together, is because of B. The recipient of this quilt. She encouraged me to put two tops together and make a double sided quilt. She has been saying I should do this for quite a few years now. Every time I mentioned how many tops I had. She would say, "Instead of buying backing fabric, put two tops together." So when I wanted to gift a quilt to her, I decided to make it double sided, just for her :)

And I am so glad that I started quilting this when I did. B was in much need of a quilty hug. When I started quilting it she wasn't, but halfway thru I knew she needed it now, and not at Christmas when I first planned to give it to her. I hope it's given her some comfort.

Have a great day All, thanks for stopping by.

Dorian

Summer time projects

 Hello All,

It's been awhile I know. I have not been sewing a lot, but still spending a bit of time in the sewing room. Mostly working on UFO's.

I saw these blocks over at Jos Country Junction. It's a Bonnie Hunter pattern called Garlic Knots.

As I had quite a few black squares and strips in my stash, I thought a darker quilt would be interesting and out of the box for me. I put 4 of the blocks together like this.

Then added sashing. The border is more of the same blocks, ones that I didn't have 4 of to make a block.

Sigh, when I sewed my rows together, I did notice that I put one row on the wrong end of the quilt, so my bright yellow + blocks in the sashing don't match. So I put it aside and went out of the sewing room. When I went back in a day or two later, I forgot about the mistake and put the border on....So now I have to spend some time frogging.

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This top started out as a swap on QATW. We sent our partner a panel or 2 or 4... depending on the size of the panel and what you wanted done with them. You could have table mats, wall hanging, full sized quilt, whatever. I sent my panels to Candice and asked for a wall hanging. This is what she made me.

The day I received this back, I had these blocks on my table.

And when I put the two next to each other, I figured it was Fate. The colors match so perfectly. 

So, I got all the split 9 patches put together in a small quilt. I cut on both diagnals. Then sewed them onto the sides of the panel quilt.

Now I need to figure out what to put on these sides, to turn it back so that my sewing machines are sitting upright. I had intended this to be a wall hanging. But when I saw what a great job Candice did with the panels, I decided I wanted it as a bed quilt where it would actually been seen sometimes (I don't have any wall space! LOL)

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This next quilt I am calling Jewels. It is a Corey Yoder pattern, well the blocks are her's. She calls it an 8 point star block and she made it in a pillow. The pattern is in the Fall 2018 Quilts and More magazine. But the setting is all mine. 

They look like sparkling jewels to me. Since I had black on my table with the Garlic knots, I thought what about black as the setting triangles here, then I also needed an alternative block. Most of the HST pieces are leftover bits from doing stitch and flip corners on a quilt. I don't usually do stitch and flip, as I hate wasting these little triangles. So I kept all these and made this pattern. The HSTs are 1.5", so tiny. But after making the 8 point star blocks, I still had some leftover, so I came up with this alternative block. I think it worked out well. I am not sure if I'll put a border on or not, it's on the back burner 'stewing'. 

And that is what I've been up to the past 3 or 4 months :) Just getting a bit done here and there, and pretty soon I had some pretty tops. Now maybe the quilting fairy will show up and make them into quilts for me :)

Thanks for stopping by!
Dorian

Panel swap fun

 Hello out there,

I hope you are all doing well and enjoying the change of season. We had a lovely, wet, cold winter. And now are having a nice, fairly wet, cool Spring. Lots of lovely flowers are blooming. My favorite is the Redbud, which is in full bloom right now. I love their purply-pink color.

In the sewing room, some friends and I on the QATW forum, decided to do a panel swap. I sent Candis this fun panel of sewing machines.

She cut them apart, added some pieces, and made me this lovely wall hanging.

So cute! Candis did a fabulous job.

Verla sent this pretty panel to me.

Verla requested a bed quilt (I had asked for a wall hanging, thats why the difference in sizes). So I had a lot of fun making different flower type blocks. I made two of these posie blocks.

And I made two of these pretty rose blocks.

Then some windmill/sunflower blocks and some tulips. Put it all together....

The green and blue blocks are pathways, in my imagination, lol. I've never made a quilt with various sized blocks, fitting them in here and there to make everything line up. So I had a lot of fun making this. 

And after we made the panels into quilty things, we sent them back to the panel owner. This was my first panel swap, as panel aren't something I normally buy. But I had my sewing machines tucked away, a gift from big Sis :) and thought it would be a fun challenge. 

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I'm just playing with scraps right now. I want to get some quilt tops quilted this summer, but have to wait till next month to buy some backings. So playing with scraps keeps me busy, but it's also easy to just set aside and do something else, or just choose not to go in the sewing room.

Have a lovely afternoon all, and thanks for stopping by.

Dorian