Sidetracked in a most colorful way!

 More progress has been made on my Crazy Jane (Dear Jane) quilt this week!  I completed row L!

Those little corner triangles on the lower block?  They are a 1/2 inch square cut in half.  Those were interesting to sew on - more is in the seam allowance than on the top of the triangle!

Just one more row to go!  Plus 2 1/4 borders.  I am really closing in on getting this finished.  

I meant to work on tidying up my sewing room this weekend, but what did I find on the first shelf as I started?  Celtic Solstice - the first Bonnie Hunter Mystery quilt that I attempted to make!  I completed the first step and was half way through with the second.  Everything was cut for that step, so I just needed to do the sewing...so I did!

Glorious color!  Then I decided to check out the next step.  And so down the rabbit hole I went.  I cut out a ton of half square triangles!

And then I sewed all of them together - the sewing took way less time than the cutting!  By then it was dinner time, but I couldn't help myself...what's the next step?

Needless to say I now have a bin of strips ready to sew for step four now.  Pretty sure that step five is also in my future today.  It's so much fun to play in these bright scraps after mostly working with blue and white for the past month.  But I did promise myself that I will be making at least one triangle for Crazy Jane today!  

The good news is that I now know why my yellow and orange bins are looking so empty - I pulled a lot of the them for this quilt, as well as Bonnie's Good Fortune mystery.  Maybe I'll do a bit of clean up and sorting fabric today as well - but it sure is tempting just to spend the day speed sewing through these two projects.  Maybe I'll make it a goal to clear the cutting table and just be happy with that!  Hope you have a lovely day and get to do some sewing, too!

Oh Scrap

UFO Busting

Quiltsy Team Scrap Challenge for June

I belong to a fabulous group of quilters on Etsy - Quiltsy Team, and we instigated a challenge to make a quilt from scraps during May and June.  Was that ever fun, and you just have to see all the terrific quilts that were made out of our scraps!  You can check out the Pinterest Board and enjoy all the wonderful creativity.  That being said, I made this table runner:

So pretty!  And there was no fussy picking and choosing involved.  I had a pile of 3 7/8 inch triangles that I had cut from scraps years ago taking up space in a little storage drawer.  I just pulled them out and sewed a print to a white (or muslin) triangle.  Then I arranged them into broken dishes blocks and threw them up on the design board.

I think I might have moved a block or two, but that was it!  I sewed it all together and found a fun piece of fabric for the back and quilted it up in a quick meander with off  white Aurifil thread.

I found a cute fabric to frame it for binding and now it's a finished table runner:

I love doing my binding totally by machine!  If you haven't downloaded a copy of my No Hand Stitching binding tutorial, it's available on PayHip - and it's free!

Free Binding Tutorial

Linking up with Cynthia (Quilting is More Fun Than Housework) for Oh Scrap!

Sewing, Sewing, Sewing....

What a week!  I've been keeping the pedal to the metal this week and have churned out an amazing lot of progress - but no finishes this week.

I've got all the blocks finished for the Brothers and Sisters quilt and am working at the border units.  Only 190 rectangles that have a sew and flip triangle on each end.  I do a bunch, then trim and press.  Those will probably keep me busy all week long.

Plus I tackled the mountain of scraps that have been building up!

That's a pretty impressive mound of blocks I've got done already.  Almost enough for a quilt top - woohoo!

You could barely even see the bin of strips before I started!  

Now look!  I've really reduced the level making all those blocks.  Don't worry, I'm in no danger of running out any time soon...I've got a big stack of leftover fabric ready to be processed and added to my bin.

It's been a fun week of scrappy projects!  

Linking up with Cynthia for Oh Scrap!

Getting back into the Groove

After a couple months of having our normal routines completely disrupted, my husband and I are both struggling with getting back into our groove.  We have managed to resume our daily walk and exercise, which is a good thing!  I made a couple of fun string blocks and am working on getting that scrap basket back down to a decent level.

I even found pieces of an unfinished quilt block!

Blockheads block number two is done - I'll do the third block a bit later today so I can stay caught up with that!

Prepping for pageant week!  The blue top is for a director, the pink dress is for a contestant.  Plus a few other odds and ends of alterations to finish up.  I'm still working on that beaded dress - there's a jacket as well that needs taken in.

The flowers are all finished and I'm working on the border of the the Grandmother's Flower Garden, right on schedule to be done by the end of the month!  Yay for that!

I also made something cute for Island Batik that I can't show you yet - it's a new Funky Friends pattern and she was super fun and cute to make!  Check out the Funky Friend Factory - they even have some free patterns you can try out :)  This is Petunia Pig.  I made her for the most recent Island Batik catalog and market - she was super cute as well!  And fun to make!

Both the linky parties I have been participating in on Fridays are taking a break, so no link-ups for me this week. 

Time to go do some quilting...got a t-shirt quilt that's begging to be finished soon - have a great weekend! 

Time to Relax and Stitch for Myself!

When did life get so busy?  I think it just sneaks up on you and before you know it, you realize that you just can't fit one more thing in!  Of course, this time of year is always hectic with gifts and parties and such, but it seems like this year is over the top with all the commitments and deadlines.  I am happy to say that most of that is behind me at this point and now I can relax a little and get into the holiday mood.  The decorations are up and looking lovely:

And somehow the tree is in the right position, and the stars must be in the correct alignment because my pretty angel topper does not look like she is ready to throw herself down for once!  Every year I struggle with trying to make sure she is upright, and this year she is just standing tall and proud with no help from me at all!  Wonder of wonders!

My husband is happy because I made the first of our special treats...fudge!  I will work on baking a batch of sugar cookies this afternoon and he will be in seventh heaven - he loves his Christmas cookies!

I'm ready to work on Christmas PJ's tomorrow, and today I plan to enjoy some free time in the sewing room.  Yesterday I started cleaning up and ended up playing in my scrap pile.  I picked up a telephone book off the floor for the umpteenth times and decided to start making some string blocks.  What fun!

I ended up with 33 blocks made out of a modest pile of scraps.  I decided I want to make 100 then I will put together a top.  So much fun just stitching away!

I also pulled out my embroidery floss to find a few more colors so I can work on finishing up this embroidery piece:

I want to use this as the cover for my 2018 Quilter's Planner, so I need to get it finished up in the near future!

I'm excited to find time to work on some projects for myself for a change...the next couple of weeks are going to be wonderful!  Make sure you schedule in a little time for yourself, this time of year can be crazy and we all need to relax and enjoy ourselves instead of grinding away all the time.  I'll see you tomorrow for the penultimate Quilter's Recipe Box block!  The final one will publish on Christmas day, then on New Years Day I will show you all the blocks I've done throughout the year.  It will be fun!

This post is linked up with Slow Sunday Stitching, and Oh Scrap...two of my favorite things!

Scrappy sewing

I was determined to do some fun sewing yesterday, so started out working on a new sample for my CityScape pattern.  Then I realized that I cut two strips wrong and needed more fabric to make it work.  UGH!  I REALLY didn't want to go anywhere, so I decided to work on the Sew Many Colors mini out of Kona cottons.  The first one I did was in batiks, but I did want to make one to enter the contest with (and it's so cute I just had to make another one anyway!)  Finding Kona cotton is a little tough here, so I ordered a Charm Pack of the new colors for my spools.  There was also an orange that worked great for the spool ends, too.  I had a half yard of Snow in my stash so I was set to get started.

After a couple of episodes of Dr Who I was this far!  So I decided I might as well finish those last two spools and finish the top.

The deadline is Friday, so I need to figure out how I want to quilt this one and get going.  At this point it was nearly time for dinner and I thought I should maybe tidy up the sewing room.  I started out by sewing some 2 inch strips together for my crocheted rug, and started digging through a shoebox I unearthed from under my sewing table earlier.  Well, there weren't really many 2 inch strips in there, but there were a ton of odd and ends of scraps.  I remembered that I had intended to do some scrappy patchwork blocks out of them.  I thought that maybe I would sew a few up and reduce the amount in the box.  

I just pulled random pieces and sewed them log cabin style.  I made two full 12 1/2 inch blocks and two smaller blocks yesterday, but my scrap bin seemed just as full as when I started.  I don't know if I will ever be able to empty this box, but I guess it will be fun trying!  Today I finished up six more blocks.  My bin is a little emptier, but I did pull some strips out of my big scrap bin because most of what is in the box is smaller pieces, and I needed more longer strips to finish the blocks up.

They are just totally scrappy.  Whatever I have that fits gets sewn on.

We'll see how many blocks I get done before I get bored with the project - I've found that I am better at starting than finishing, especially with a project that isn't planned out or has a purpose.

Linking up with Quilting is More Fun Than Housework for Oh Scrap!