Big Brown Bear is a finished quilt!

Hello Everyone,

I hope you are all having a great Saturday. I wanted to pop in real quick and show you my finished Bear quilt. This is my own design, putting together a few different blocks. The Bear and the cute paw print border comes from Lorna's Bear pattern. 

 This is the back. My future BIL is ex-navy, he served for 10 yrs and I thought I'd give a nod to him with this eagle, flying in the forest. 

My Sister and BIL live in the forest in Oregon. So I think this bear quilt will fit in their home just perfectly. They love the woods. ( On a side note, I find it fascinating that out of 4 of us girls (me and my 3 sisters), 3 of us married a man who had something to do with boats and water. Ken is ex-navy, as is my honey, and my other BIL Marc comes from a family of boat builders/sailers.... Of course, all three of our men came from California, where there is water right there LOL! so maybe that explains it :)

Back to the quilt.... Here you can see the quilting a bit. I used a mixture of loops, swirls, stars and hearts.

One last picture.

Hope everyone has a fantastic weekend.

Quilting the Bear and other progress

Hello Everyone,

Having a good Spring (Winter)? We had some lovely days after many days of rain, that was really nice, but now we are getting some more rain...which we need, so I am not complaining. The garden is growing fast, the Iris's are in bloom as are the roses :)

And inside... I've been quilting the Bear quilt (pattern from Lorna). Loops, and stars, swirls and ... hearts :) Because, it is a wedding quilt, after all ;)

I've gotten most of it quilting now, just have to do the borders. So, I think I will make the August deadline at this rate, yah!!

Another project I've been working on here and there the past few months is this one:

Sorry for the glare... Island Sunrise by Judy Niemeyer. It is a paper piecing pattern. I bought this quite a few years ago, not sure how many exactly. I would work on it for a bit, then put it away for a few years, then bring it out again. I don't do PPing very much.  But I am now to this stage,

The paper piecing is all done, now I am just putting on the corners.

I need to buy some tone on tone green and blue, in order to finish it though.

So, back it goes for however long... one day it will be finished :)

Have a lovely day All.

Big Brown..... Big Brown Bear....

Hello Everyone,

Yah, California has gotten some rain!! and some fires put out!! WOOHOO.. and now in my little part of CA, we had frost on the ground this morning and the tail end of the storm yesterday left us a  sprinkling of SNOW :) I love snow :)

But, you are here to see my Big Brown Bear... (anyone read that book to their kids? After 4 kids, I can read it with my eyes shut tight ;) teeheehehe )

The bear paw blocks I made in  a swap with some of my online quilting buddies. The bear is a pattern from Lorna. I tweaked it just a little to fit my blocks...

I love that bear paw print border... but boy was it tedious!

Anyone getting some Christmas sewing done? I've done just a little, haven't been able to think of quilty gifts to give this year.

Have a great night!


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Under my needle

Hello Everyone,

I've been busy in the sewing room. First making bear paw blocks, then swapping them out with an online group of fun Ladies. Here is the ten I received back.

I am going to make a quilt out of them and this bear, that I got from Lorna's Bear Paw pattern. I had to change it up just slightly, as I didn't want the sashing and cornerstones in it.

I'm working on the border pieces right now. And there are LOTS of them!!

Each of the bear paw prints are 4.5" unfinished, which means these are tiny pieces! The white is cut at 1" and the brown is cut at .75"! But you cut the strips and sew them together, then subcut them, so it isn't too tedious.

I also got a few table runners finished. My sweet Big Sis sent me these, you can cut all four apart and make place mats with them, but I like to use table runners, so I sewed two together, with some matching fabrics.

I put one facing one way, and one another because there is six of us at the table and we sit on each side of it.

The colors did not come out very good. They are gray and a light aqua color.

And I've started my Christmas gifts! I need to get going, Christmas is going to be here before we know it :)

The weather is beautiful. Cool at night, warm in the afternoon. Crisp and Fall like, with the leaves all turning colors....now we just need some rain!

Hope you are all well and enjoying some sewing time.

A new Year..... a new machine :)

Hello All,

I hope you all had a great Christmas. I did :)

Santa was good to me, see what lovely machine he bought to add to my collection.

This is a Singer 66-1. It was made in Scottland in 1917. And it works beautifully! This is the predecessor to my Singer 201. They call it the Lotus, due to the flower design on it. As you can see, it is a hand cranked machine. I wasn't sure if I was going to like that, but for small seams, like putting blocks together, it works very well.

A New Year brings new resolutions to many people, or words they are going to strive to live by. I'm just going to try and sew more, and get on my blog here and share what I'm doing with thread and fabric :)

This little machine is perfect for sitting on the table and sewing near the fire (especially since the snow is coming down!) Which makes me a happy camper, I love the snow :) So I've been working on my Bear paw blocks (Bear pawQAL by Lorna).

I have two more full blocks that are almost done. Then I'll work on the partial blocks/bear blocks. I'm going to put a border on this too, even though it's the lap size. So lots of work yet, but I'll get there.

Take care Everyone.

Linking up with Lorna.

A bit of progress

Hello Everyone,

My poor sewing machine is going unloved these days. I just haven't had the energy to sew very much lately. Medical issues are keeping me down.

But, I have done a few minutes here and there and have 4 more completed bear paw blocks done (for the Mod bear paw QAL)

Thanks to everyone who helped me out with the backing ground fabric. I have decided to stick with the dark brown.  As my good friend Pat says, the color will imply 'trees', and so that fits in perfectly.

Here is the background color on the far left and the colors I will be using for the bear. I think they are light enough for him to stand out enough.

Hope you are all enjoying the change of weather. I love this time of year, going from a hot summer to some cool rain. It's been lovely.

Have a great day everyone!

WIP Wednesday

Good morning All,

I think Fall is here to stay. Things have cooled off and we got our first rain of the season, feels SO good!

I haven't been doing much in the sewing room though. Working on my bear paw blocks, but very slowly, have only been getting 2 a week done.

My good friend Pat suggested brown for sashing, to imply trees. I thought that was just perfect, but the only brown I have is this one, and I think it's too dark.

What do you all think? Should it be a bit lighter? My bear is going to be shades of brown too. Hmmm...

I hope you've all been getting more sewing done than me. LOL

Have a great day.

Linking up with Lorna.

WIP Wednesday

Hello All,

I've gotten a bit of progress on my Bear Paw QAL, hosted by Lorna.

I have a hard time with my hands, so tend to do some cutting, then a bit of sewing, then back to cutting again. It's easier on me.

So, I've gotten the Bear Paw blocks mostly cut out. And now I am piecing them. Don't those Fusions Bloom fabrics look awesome against the dark green background?! (Of course, they look more awesome in real life, pictures dont do it justice.)

I wont iron and trim till I'm done with more blocks. But that gets put into the loop too... cut, sew, iron, trim, repeat..

Linking up with Lorna.