Sunday Thoughts

Well hello there blog world. It's been awhile. Things are full steam ahead with my job, Sophie back in school, school activities and play time with the brilliant boyfriend and I just have been putting the bloggy blog on the back burner of life.

So, a quick little catch up...

I made a quilt with Jenny Eliza fabric designed by Jennifer Paganelli for JoAnn's.

Finished quilt using Quilt As You Go tutorial from Maureen Cracknell

This is mostly what it is being used for

What I made with some of the scraps - kitchen towel
The kitchen towel was made using this tutorial from Schnitzel & Boo

Quilt for my friend Mary

I used the Designer Star pattern by Lee from May Chappell

Cotton + Steel, Kaffe, and Moda fabrics

I love the back!

This quilted table runner turned out so cute! I think I will put it in my etsy store that is completely empty right now. I need to take better pics for sure...

...and the back...

My biggest quilty love is paper piecing!! I will try to focus and make a tutorial for paper piecing. I know that there are a lot out there so I wasn't going to. I have had a lot of people asking me how though.

paper pieced feathers

Last bit - There was a partial eclipse last weekend and we wanted to see it from the beach. This was my picture with my phone camera - obviously my phone camera is not the greatest.

Phone camera - no partial eclipse noticed

HOWEVER! Ernie, with his ever present camera, caught this doozy!! So amazing. I will leave you with that :-)

Free Motion Quilting Nightmares

Okay, so maybe not a nightmare exactly…but certainly not fun. I have an old Singer 6235 that is very tempermental. It's a beast (in a good way) when it comes to straight line quilting and piecing - I always forget because I tend to use my little Janome - it travels better and has a lighter touch. The Singer means business - the feed dogs pull that fabric along like no one's business and the thump of the needle up and down is intentional and nothing should stand in it's way. The "whir" is more like a growl where the Janome almost sounds like it is purring.

The biggest difference is the Singer has a free-motion quilting foot and my basic Janome does not. 

I want to free-motion quilt SO bad!! I've done it before and loved the way it turned out! This is my very first art quilt I started in 2003, I hand beaded the heart and the sun, traced Sophie and my hands, made ribbon roses out of hand dyed silk ribbons, and echo quilted the whole thing. I was in the process of making spirals on the 4 marbled yellow/pink small borders and ran out of thread after the first one was completed. Flash forward many years later and I have thread similar enough to the one used and really want to finish the sucker. 

The problem is the machine is really jaunty. I've taken it in numerous times over the past few years and the results are always the same. I can't get the smooth curves and spirals or even straight lines that I did years past. She's become a grouchy old lady. I will keep trying though - Maybe it is just me that is out of practice…the back is loopy but it stitches fine when using the feed dogs (still a little jaunty but not enough to mess up piecing. One stitch here and there is a little crooked). The quilts I am making lately are not for any competitions or anything so it has been fine for straight line quilting too. I'm just disappointed and a new machine is out of the question for the time being. Thanks for letting me vent.

So instead I have been working on this Ferris Wheel Quilt by don't call me betsy. I saw the zebra print Safari Moon fabric by the fabulous Frances Newcombe for Art Gallery Fabrics and fell in love with it! I knew it had to be the center of all of the blocks. I have the smaller print on the same blue that I am using in other blocks. I'm also using a lime-ish green solid with a metallic glint and a soft purple shade that is in the Safari Moon print. I do love these big 18" blocks and I think they will look great all put together.

Work has been crazy busy as it is "Season" for us Florida folks. Everyone is escaping their snowy Winter…and now Spring…and coming to sit by the sea shore in their bikinis and swim trunks. Good for our economy. Siesta Key was named the #3 beach by Mr. Beach this year and the 2 that beat us are in Hawaii. Stiff competition but we are nearly always in the top 5 - this year is the busiest year we've had according to the locals. I will be glad to have the quiet in a few months.

Cheers!

Finished Project!

It was such a beautiful day yesterday! Sunshine and low 80's. Almost makes a girl feel guilty when her friends up north and back in Texas and Oklahoma are freezing and prepping for another Winter storm. Then I remember that I chose to move here and they choose to stay there! I will enjoy my sunshine and warm Winters. Maybe one day this week I will even make it to the beach.

I did a lot of cutting and sewing this weekend. Sophie's pencil bag broke and I have a pattern for a bag but it is a little big. I explained it every way I could and she insisted that it would be fine. So instead of watching the Superbowl (Dallas wasn't in it so I don't care much anyway) Sophie and I went to JoAnn's to find fabric to match some pieces we already had. 

The pattern was fairly simple. 6 scrappy 8" blocks, a 14" sport zipper, 2 layers of batting, a 15"x22" piece of fabric for lining and voila! You have a bag. Being the first zipper I have ever done, of course I sewed part of it on wrong and had to unstitch it. The bag…well…it's really big! I told Sophie I would make her a smaller one and could use this one myself. She insisted on keeping this one though and proceeded to empty out her backpack of any non-important things…ie: math book…and said she would just pack an apple for lunch to save room. Oh goodness. I think I will be making another smaller bag in the near future.

Sophie and Ernie spent some time working on a very difficult Dr Who puzzle while I sewed and cut fabric for my Friday play day. It was a very pleasant evening. I do love our family time - it makes my heart happy!

Sunday Funday!

So sorry to see the day come to an end. It was a lovely weekend although a bit cloudy today. Ernie and I started out the day by going out to the St. Armands Art & Craft fair to see a client/friend of his. I just love our weekend time together. On our way back to the car we had a little rain shower. Nothing major just enough to make us a little damp and chilly. Then we headed back to go our separate ways for a little while. I dropped Sophie off at the mall and went to the grocery store. Then I came home to sew for a little bit. One of my machines, Little Nellie, is at the doctor's office and my old Bessie is here but sick. Well, I think I figured it out! I took out the bobbin and I noticed there is a little raised bump right on the edge where the thread comes out…I pulled out another bobbin and popped it in and sure enough, she is stitching like the old girl she used to be. I haven't tried free-motion quilting with her yet because I didn't want to push my luck. But she is piecing ok!

These beauties came in a few weeks ago and I have been trying to decide what to do with them. Then I found Amy Gibson's blog Stitchery Dickory Dock and fell in love with her new BOM - Sugar Block Club. I may do another one of these with other materials I have as a gift for someone. So fun! 

Well, I am so glad one of my machines is running. When you get an itch to sew you just have to sew! Don't get me wrong…there are other things I could be doing but none of them are quite as fun :)

What projects are you working on this week?

Cheers!

Post Christmas Not So Blues

Well, Christmas has come and gone but this year there were no blues. Yes, Ernie and I had to go back to work the next day and yes, Sophie was able to stay home and enjoy more of her Winter break from school but it still feels Christmas-ish to me. This was our 3rd Christmas here in Florida and it was an overcast day but it was 81 degrees yesterday afternoon. We spent Christmas with Ernie's family and ended it with mine and I guess I am still relaxed at heart knowing that there are people in my life to love.

I think my favorite thing this time of year is seeing the Amish girls all lined up in their bright solid colored dresses with their crisp white bonnets and sun kissed skin and sandy bare feet waiting for the bus after a day at the beach. Even though there is NO parking by my office, everyone is so happy and there are large groups of families greeting each other while waiting for seats at the local restaurants that it makes everything ok. It's just a short time period and everyone will be back to their normal routine in another week or so. I tell myself to let them enjoy each other and just allow more time to find parking!

This is what I was working on up until Christmas:

I made it for one of Sophie's Aunts back in Texas. I found the pattern in Modern Patchwork's Winter 2014 issue. Here's the link if you want to check it out! 

I'm working on another pattern out of the same issue for Sophie's other Aunt. It will just have to be a New Year's gift :) 

Off to get ready for the day! 

Cheers <3