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!

Quilty Catch-up

Hidey ho neighbor! Well, it has been a busy few weeks. So I need to do a little bloggy blog catch-up. This should really be 2 blogs because there is so much to catch up on but…well…I'm lazy so you are stuck with one. 

Disclaimer: The first 5 quilts are not mine! Last weekend was the Venice Quilt Show and the Manatee Quilt Show. Ernie's mom and dad came down Saturday to spend the day with us. Ernie and his dad went off and his beautiful mom and I went show and shop hopping. We saw a few friends along the way and some amazing work done by local quilters. I typically take pictures of the cards so I can go back and read the stories of the artist/quilter and quilt but I also typically have a real camera and not my phone - plus the Venice show was so packed we were lucky to even get a picture at all! So, alas, the quilts below are uncredited but again I will say - they are not mine! They were just some of my favorites.

AMAZING quilting - makes it look like snow drifts

Background is silk and every flower is hand beaded in the center

Grumpy Cat!

Tokyo - made with the quilter's collection of Japanese fabrics

I just thought this was stunning - love the colors

I finally finished my Pinata pillow. It is getting much love - mostly from the cat. I just love the way it turned out and really love that I still have some of that fabric left so I can turn it into something else. Not sure what yet…side note: never ask a quilter what they plan on doing with the fabric when they buy it. Never.











Friday night was PMS night at one of the local quilt shops - Cotton Patch - It was from 6pm-midnight and boy was I pooped. It was sew much fun though! I love the new friends I have made and all of them are very talented, kind, and funny ladies. After lots of the picture below on Thursday night - I attempted to work on it Friday night and ended up with all of the fabric facing the correct way but I had reversed the colorway of the blocks…sigh.

Friday night sunlight and our organized mess

Gah!

 A bit wonky but it won't matter once it's quilted :)

Saturday afternoon was my Modern Quilt Guild meeting and we made charity quilts for a few hours. I sat with a friend who was at PMS the night before and we were both a little zombie-ish. Show and Tell was amazing as usual. Saturday night, Elizabeth Dackson from don't call me betsy suggested a #paperpiecingparty on Instagram from 8pm-11pm and I have a pattern and fabric that have been dying to just be something. So I pulled out Elizabeth's Ferris Wheel Quilt pattern and begun cutting away!  

This is going to be fun! 

Off to do a little sewing before the world wakes up and catches me…
Cheers!

Friday Night Fun

Last night was PMS (Pizza, Munchies, Sewing…what did you think it meant?) night at one of the local quilt stores, Cotton Patch. My new friend Jaden had wanted to go and invited me to sign up to join her (if you want a good read, good laugh, and to learn a new recipe or learn how to not store fish sperm - go check out her blog!). Another friend had ended up being there last night as well and all together there were about 25 of us and the shop owner who is such a great lady. We stayed until midnight - gasp! I didn't even know I could stay awake that long anymore. Only a couple of us got loopy. It was really fun to see all of the projects that were brought and a few of them finished. I couldn't decide what to bring so I loaded myself down and brought a million projects with me. There was so much gabbing and munching and laughing that I am surprised I finished anything! 

Well, I didn't really…I shorted myself 1 white square so I had to finish my Sugar Block Club BOM this morning. I love the way it turned out and it looks so pretty next to its January friend.

Jaden and I met last month at the Modern Quilt Guild meeting. Elizabeth Dackson of don't call me betsy was the guest speaker and we had a free motion quilting workshop. She has a beautiful BOM called Lucky Stars and they are all paper pieced. Both of us signed up and neither of us know how to paper piece so we both brought our projects thinking we could learn together. Laura, the amazing owner of Cotton Patch, gave us an impromptu class on paper piecing and now we are SET! I can't wait to dig into my stash and finish this! I love paper piecing! 

This little itty bitty booger was last on my list of things I started and didn't finish. Thimble Blossoms Dwell . My little house block is only 3" x 4.5". I was able to dig through my stash and find enough coordinating pieces that I would almost call it a stash buster. But at a finished size of 13" x 15", I don't think there is a lot of "busting" going on. 

All in all it was a great night! I signed up for the March one as well and maybe this time I won't bring so many projects! I just need to finish something.

Cheers!