Rainy Day Motivation

 It is a rainy and snowy  day here in Alberta, 

so a perfect time to make a list and get 

some projects completed. 

First, finish up the quilting on a charity piece.

Our guild ties many of the charity quilts but 

I like to bring the extras home and quilt them 

up on my domestic. 

Here is a wonderful flock of flyimg geese.

Credit goes to quild 

members who made the delightful top and 

pieced a very nice blue backing. 

This was quilted up with a giant wave to help the 

geese fly off into the sky !

Next, I am tackling a baby quilt to match

my DD's wedding quilt.  

There were few 

false starts but it will have a satin edge and 

a cute sheep backing!

  I can't wait to get it completed!

If all that gets underway today, I 

will work on two color bombs.

 One is off to a neighor's new arrival. 

The other will go to charity fund raising. 

Just overlook all the bags in the back for the 

quilt show.  I didn't realize I seem to 

be packing up my sewing room!! Who knew!

Stay safe and sew on!

Linking up with:

Monday Musings

Design Wall Monday

Monday Sew & Tell 

To Do Tuesday

Wednesday Wait Loss

Midweek Makers

Put Your Foot Down

Needle & Thread Thursday

Finished or Not Friday

Off the Wall Friday

Gone Stitching

TGIFF

Foto Finish

Free Motion Mavericks

RSC 2024

Patchwork & Quilts

Oh Scrap!

Stitching Stuff

Bright Weekend Sewing

 I think sitting in the sun and putting down my thoughts

is one of the reasons I like to blog.  

How many of us dreamed of being writers, 

making it big with a best seller?

I am content just sharing some thoughts and some creative

works with like minded people ! 

A nice segway into the product from the first retreat of season.

    It was held by a group I joined in the new year.  I wanted to 

meet some new friends and go to a nearby meeting and this 

group fit the bill.   

We arrived to find some great goodies for us.

One item was a little project kit in the theme of the

weekend, fruit!

It had lots of different techniques in the making so 

we had lots of interaction and learning!  Curved 

piecing, paper piecing, a zipper, lining and color

planning!  A few of us finished in an afternoon and 

came home with this adorable zippered fruit pouch!

First up for me tho, was stitching ups some Terri Rowland

blocks.  They are little scrappy 3 1/2" cut blocks that will

eventually make a color wash twin size top. Easy to do

while setting up and greeting old friends and making new ones. 

They sewed up quickly so I had success within hours of arriving!

Finished up the first night joining stacks of blocks.

Almost the last of the log cabin blocks went together 

into a twin sized top.

  

Then a little pineapple top for the upcoming arrival was 

put together. The back I had didn't sparkle to me so that 

went back in the box.  Later, I traded it for a lovely piece

of  yellow flannel. 

A random cloud of inspiration (distraction) came

 into my sewing room one evening and I cut 

way too many 1 1/2" strips. They sewed

up into 48 11 1/2" family color squares.  Yes, that is a very 

unique size. Late night sewing makes for strange pattern reading!

Anyway, they all got stitched into tops, and I now have three very 

adorable color bombs.  Two tops were completed at retreat,  

with the third getting its stripy binding a home. 

 One is quilted  and ready for the quilt show 

once it gets a sleeve and  a label.

Guess where some of those color family

 log cabin blocks ended up?

So many scraps were on my mind that the last day became 

good time to sew off into the sunset and on into starlight. 

Some color crumbs surrounded by wonky stars from the 

block bank dazzle. The crisp white seems to 

enhance the crumbs so well it feels like magic! 

Stay safe and enjoy retreat and sew day season!

Linking up with: 

Design Wall Monday 

Monday Musing 

Sew & Tell

Midweek Makers

Wednesday Wait Loss

To do Tuesday

Needle and Thread Thursday 

Free Motion Mavericks

Put Your Foot Down

Finished of Not Friday

Design Wall Friday

Foto Friday

TGIFF

    

Sunday Stash Moving Numbers

 As promised, I got another small project complete so 

the numbers can move closer to net zero!!

A wonderful fun and successful retreat yielded 

another crib quilt, complete and bound!!

 The top finished up at the retreat and a nice afternoon

stitching and pinning  moved the project along. 

I am getting used to the new snap feature for photos, 

it is lots of fun and make quilt documenting easier. 

Some strings found a home on the back of this quilt too.

So my year to date is now:

Fabric In: 20.5 m

Fabric out this week: 6m ( 2 crib sized color bombs)

Use to date: 12 m

Net Fabric In: 8.5 m

Stay safe and let's keep 

using up fabric!

Linking up with : 

Sunday Stash Report

More Brightness

 Great big revelation this week, I changed the 

light bulbs in my workspace!  It is now like 

daylight in here!

Finally took a breath after  a busy week of 

birthdays, meeting and preparations to change

all the expired light bulbs, four in total!  

I chose daylight leds and wow, what a difference.  

The federal government ( whoops , I first typed feral)

distributed energy saving bulbs two years ago, 

but they were lower wavelength and 

yellow toned.  The daylight white 

gives much clearer color readings and 

more happiness all around!

So much so, that all the mending has been 

completed!  One pair of SS3 ( Super son #3) 

jeans, two pair of DDIL yoga pants

and one puffy jacket of mine.

 Wow! 

 I am on a roll,

it must be the new light energy!

Stay safe and get some sunlight!

Almost Retreat Season

Spring is almost here and retreats are coming up.  

I am readying the list and I always make 

exciting discoveries going thru projects to

finish/ start or complete. 

First up will be the RSC squirrel that ran

into my sewing room right before some 

rainy weather. Now I have parts of 3 little color 

bombs that will be prefect for our Zebra charity.

All my RSC work has been on these

adorable color family blocks. They are 

so much fun to make!

They just need assembly and 

borders at the weekend workdays!

Next, I have had the black log cabins 

looking me in the eye for a long time.

Two are ready for pinning, one has a 

border to attach and one needs a border made.  

This border needs to be modified to 

fit the quilt center but keep the slashes 

evenly spaced. 

The next decision is the joining of the blocks. 

Should they be sashed? 

Adding sashing rapidly ramps up the size.

I do love the sashing look, so many decisions!

Binding, borders and the last of the 

blocks will get assembled at retreat. 

The solution I devised is to make the border 

out of small scrappy blocks just like the center

and float them in black . It should be fun to do 

and use up a lot of my bag of Bali bits. It is 

a very big bag but it will be a start!

A good portion of this planning afternoon, 

will be spent ferreting out some more black fabric!

Leftover pineapple blocks are going together to match

my DD's (darling daughter) baby quilt. 

I will have to shop for a back

since I only have blue and brown backs in my stash. 

It needs a neutral color so shopping is in order. 

Retreats always inspire me and get my spinning 

mind going at warp speed!

Let's all listen  to John Luc and 

"Engage!"

Stay safe and sew on!

Linking with:

Design Wall Monday

Monday Musings

Monday Sew & Tell

Wednesday Wait Loss

Midweek Makers

Put Your Foot Down

Free Motion Mavericks

Finished or Not Friday

Design Wall Friday 

Foto Fun

Oh Scrap!

RSC 2024

Patchwork & Quilts

Let's get pinning!

 Well, lessons have been learned!

Do not pin late into the evening!

I ended up redoing the pinning since  

there were lumps all over the back

of my two color bombs!!

Here we are after a redo, with 

much smoother backs and fronts to start quilting!

Getting ready for a show and trying 

to get a handle on my projects is 

creating a bit of a mess !  It is a fun 

mess though and I am enjoying all the sewing 

time I am getting in. 

No fabric has been purchased recently, 

I am still the 1 meter purchased but 

more scraps have rolled in !

So about 2 meters in this lovely 

bag of potential.

So that makes for 

Fabric In: 22.5 m

Fabric out: 6 m ( 1 twin log cabin)

Net Fabric In: 16.5 m

The next few quilts finished

will help me put this number closer to zero!

Stay safe and sew on!!

Linking up to:

Sunday Stash Reporting

 

Digging into the Design

Digging into the design wall on eclipse day!

Credit DW STEVENS

 The wall was really getting stacked up !

So off comes the color bombs for retreat sewing.  

I made enough for three small tops and the extra 1 1/2" strips

are nicely stored in designated drawers. 

The next layer is a twin log cabin 

that is waiting for a back and layering. 

It can move over to the flimsy storage 

rack with its twin!

That exposes the problem item, 

the result of a squirrel one cold

weekend.  It is a braid that got off 

track when I neglected to focus on 

the centerline! 

 I have a plan so I will 

pack it up to work on it sometime soon! 

The last two things on the design wall 

are more log cabin and waffle blocks. 

The waffle blocks are ongoing so no worries 

there but this is not another year of log cabins. 

The 8 blocks on the wall need to find a home . 

They are an assortment of colors left over from my 

brief foray into making a two sided quilt with 

log cabins on the back. 

Once I re-evaluated and found I already have 3 log cabin style in 

my collection, they weren't needed. So they will either:

1- go onto a quilt back to make it larger or

2-get mixed in with the last log cabin block stack to make 

a larger quilt. 

Hope you safely enjoyed the solar eclipse over North 

America!

Stay safe and keep those solar glasses on!

Linking up with : 

Design Wall Monday

Stitching Stuff

Monday Musings

Sew & Tell

To Do Tuesday

Wait Loss Wednesday

Midweek Makers 

Needle and Thread Thursday

Put Your Foot Down

Free Motion Mavericks

Off the Wall Friday 

Finished or Not Friday

Thank Goodness It's Finished!

RSC Saturday

Patchwork & Quilts

Eyes on the Prize!

 Another snowy morning in April!

My BB and I are off to retreat and 

the snow is a fallin'!

Does everyone's retreat supplies look like this?

Luckily, this camp is very close

and we should be only 30 minutes

on snow covered roads. 

My monthly goals have been sadly 

lacking so I am stepping up to the

challenge and "getting things done"!

I spent one wild weekend digging 

out backs!  It was great fun and 

made a huge mess.  Many fun fabrics 

were rediscovered, so it was like 

an in house treasure hunt!

Here is the result.

 

The vault is 

very sparse and the quilt rack is full!

Eleven tops are set with their backs,

awaiting  a turn under the needle!  

Getting backs ready is definitely a

finish worthy of a link up!!! 

A late night and a long day layering 

and the sandwiches will be ready to 

go!  The goal over the next three 

months will be to clear this rack!

We have a new arrival coming in 

July so he/she  will be a nice finishing reward. 

Stay safe and sew on!

Linking up with:

OMG

Thank Goodness It's Finished Friday!

Rollin', Rollin' Rollin' on the Quilting!

 I am sure on a roll! 

Another log cabin complete and bound!

Some scrappy premade binding, from the binding library, was used 

to make the finishing easier and it even

 

decreased my binding supply.

Working on guild charity items to be quilted,

one is complete and another is started.

 

Our local guild usually ties the quilts but 

I took a few unfinished ones home to stitch up on my domestic. 

They were pillowcase turned and a line 

of stitching run around the outside to 

close the turning hole and stabilize the quilt sandwich. 

I am finishing them up by stitching quilting lines that 

either follow the piecing lines or compliment the pattern. 

The first one, a disappearing nine patch, received

a 6 inch grid pattern.  

The next one is a concentric

strip quilt and I am quilting the diagonals and between

in matching colors. 

These are donated charity quilts so I 

feel comfortable showing a portion of them!

 

Woot, woot! The machine is working 

well, threads are flying. My two thread bunnies

are busy collecting the trimmed off threads!

Scrap quilting seems to create a lot of threads to be 

trimmed and clipping a cutoff piece of batting 

to my tall thread guide or stuffing it in a cup, 

really keeps my socks from becoming thread catchers!

 I even managed to attend

a quilt show meeting.  My very first one and it has 

really opened my eyes on what goes on behind the scenes.

I am part of the intake team.  Secrets have been revealed!

I will get to see all the beautiful quilts first hand!! Wowzer!

Finishing up some entries had me fighting with my

printer!  The printer won and I managed to completely

block myself from the internet while trying to 

connect it.  The learning from this is to: be brave!  

It turns out my printer does not like the cloud so I just PDF

what I want to print and it will come out perfectly!

Here is a mug shot of the evil printer!

The solution to reconnecting to the WWW was to 

just go back and undo a few of the LAN (local area network)

changes I made while trying to make the printer connect.

After a little internal turmoil, (like in a dream when you 

can't remember your locker combination from high school), 

it rebounded perfectly and I feel like a hacker!

Stay safe and be brave with your tech!

Linking up with :

Design Wall Monday

Monday Musings

Wednesday Wait Loss

Midweek Makers

Put Your Foot Down

To Do Tuesday

Needle and Thread Thursday

Free Motion Mavericks

Off the Wall Friday

Finished or Not Friday

Gone Stitchin'

Oh Scrap

RSC 2024

Patchwork & Quilting

Stitching Stuff