Ahh - Time for the Weekend!

Yesterday was one of those rare gorgeous, warm, no wind days on the coast!  We decided to take a break and get out of the house for a change.  It had been a very busy week of working on dresses for a pageant and two emergency bridesmaid dresses.  I was ready to get out and enjoy a day of relaxing!

After lunch at our favorite Pizza Place we headed for the beach.  It was a little breezy there, but I didn't have to put my sweatshirt on, so you can just about count that as a heat wave!  We stopped for an afternoon Ice Cream Cone at the Tillamook Creamery - what a deal!  You get a huge scoop of ice cream for $2.25!  I bypassed the chocolate and tried Coconut Creme - it was delicious!

After that we headed back home.  Still beautiful, no wind at all!  It was close to dinner time, but I decided to drag out my lounge chair and relax with a book.  I kept hearing a funny click/chirp and spied hummingbirds up in the tree above me!  This is at 6:00 in the evening!  Absolutely clear, warm and no wind (wait till next week, I'll go out there on a regular afternoon and let you see what it's like)

I didn't even get bitten by any mosquitoes, though I watched various birds flitting through the air catching bugs.

I was having a hard time concentrating on my book because I was enjoying being outdoors so much in the perfect weather!

It was so lovely to enjoy an evening in the yard - that rarely happens due to the winds that come up most afternoons.  We live at the top of a hill so we get it full blast most days.

Now I am refreshed and ready to get back to quilting!  I am working on finishing up the Vintage Embroidery quilt:

And getting together a new shop sample for my CityScape Pattern.  I have all the blocks put together now and just need to do the sashing.  This is the third sample I've made for this pattern, we keep running out of the fabrics we use!  Good problem to have in the quilt shop :)

I enjoyed picking out another bunch of fat quarters and I could not resist that lime-y green with the pebbles.  It's going to be perfect for the cornerstones, and the seagulls are an ideal sashing.  They tone down the blocks, but keep with our ocean theme.

Next week I have some mending, pants hemming and two wedding dresses to finish up.  I keep thinking I'll get to the end of the pile, but every time I get close, the phone rings again!  Not that I'm complaining...it helps keep the bills paid, and that's important.

Hope you are having a good weekend!  Get out and enjoy the fresh air - it will do you a world of good!  Then you can go sew :)

Time for Winners!

It's always fun to get to this part of a giveaway!  When I woke up this morning I had rafflecopter randomly draw my winners - Donna won the fabric giveaway and Lee won the patterns.  Congrats, Ladies!  Check your e-mail for more information!

This is one of my projects from yesterday.  I believe it is going to be a raffle quilt for a local group.  It's pretty awesome, but it isn't your typical quilt!  The motorcycles are all that rubbery t-shirt transfer fabric, and the black is pleather (imitation leather).  It has a layer of poly batting and is backed with black fleece.  Quite an interesting combination to work with!

You can see the gorgeous texture in the pleather.  That's the way it came, not from quilting!  The only quilting I did was to outline each of the motorcycle squares.  With all the thickness of the fabrics there was a small amount of puckering on the back, but it's not that bad.  The backing was turned to the front for the binding.  A bit of a challenge, but it came out pretty well!

The binding clips were perfect for the job!  You can really see the texture in the pleather with this shot - so pretty!

I also started working on the Vintage Embroidery quilt.  I got it basted - this is my first quilt using two layers of batting.  The top batting is Dream wool and the bottom layer is pellon cotton.

I got the stitch in the ditch done to stabilize it and have started to quilt the blocks!  It's going to be stunning, I think!

 I was so nervous to stitch on the blocks, but I love the results!  It takes about 5 minutes to do a block and there are 42 in the quilt, so I have a few hours of quilting ahead of me.  Each block is 4 1/2 inches plus 1 inch borders framing it.

Today is grocery shopping day, so I suppose I'd better get off the computer and get my day going.  Congrats to Donna and Lee!  Thanks to everyone for your comments and participation - it was really fun hearing about your favorite blocks.  It made me want to sew them all up!

Two quilt tops and a pouch

I've really enjoyed reading all the comments on yesterday's post!  I am really loving hearing about what everyone's favorite blocks are.  I feel like the old classics like Ohio Star and Churn Dash are still good solid blocks that many people enjoy making even now.  I don't think they will ever go out of style!

I had an enjoyable afternoon yesterday as my youngest daughter came to visit!  She brought over her new shipment of Young Living oils and I decided she needed a pouch to put them in.  I found an easy tutorial on Patchwork Posse.  I dumped out my scrap bin, had her choose a few fabrics and got to work!

It was fun seeing the fabrics she chose, she's definitely not a little girl any more - her picks were a lot different that what she would have chosen before she left home for college!  It was also fun because she brought a friend home with her and she was really interested in learning about quilting.  I gave her some of my scraps to start her own fabric stash with, and I had fun visiting with her while I sewed!

I was a little frustrated while making this because my thread started breaking, then my tension went crazy loose.  I got through finishing the pouch, and after making a couple of scrunchies for her friend, I shut it down for the night.  First thing this morning I took the time to thoroughly clean and oil my Juki and she was much happier after that!  I got a lot of sewing done this afternoon.  I have two quilt tops all ready to quilt, just have to go pick up some muslin for the backing.

I love the way the vintage embroidery quilt looks with the blue border!  This one is going to be quilted with a double layer of batting, wool on top of a cotton batting.  Can't wait to see how it comes out!

The second one is Cat's Fancy - I made this last year, but had a request to make a second one.  This was a kit I purchased.  

I'm ready to do some quilting, so am excited to get started on these!  After they are done, I have more projects lined up, so am happy to be on a roll, and that my machine is working well.  Now, I've got to figure out an easy table runner pattern for a project I need to finish this week.  Always something, I never seem to get caught up, but at least it's quilting so it's fun!  

Linking up with Connie for Linky Tuesday - lots of inspiration there to check out!

Sitting and Stitching

Today's project is to finish hand stitching the hearts for that baby quilt made with vintage embroidery blocks!  I have set a goal to get the rest of the blocks ready today so I can put together the top for quilting.

I like to hand applique with Aurifil 50 weight.  It really disappears into the fabric!

I am using freezer paper to trace my templates on, pressing it to the back of the fabric, then pressing the seam allowance down around the edge of the paper.  I leave a couple inch gap, pull the paper out, then complete the applique leaving the back intact.  For these bigger shapes it's easy to do it this way.  For smaller shapes I would cut a slit in the back and get the paper out that way.

I'm impatient, so doing hand work can be a little trying - the results are slower in coming, but well worth while!  It's definitely good for me to slow down and work on a project like this now and then...hope you are having a wonderful  slowed down day!

I'm linking up with Kathy for Slow Stitching Sunday, come join us :)

Trusting my Eye

It seems like I don't have much trouble deciding when something looks good, but when I have a project that isn't quite right I have a hard time actually deciding that I need to change it.  This happened when I was working on my Circle Quilt.  I didn't really like one of the colors I had in it, but was dragging my feet on making a decision to change it out.  I finally put the picture up on Instagram and overwhelmingly got the feedback that, yes, I should change it out!

Not sure if I really like the peach block after all....should I change it out?

A post shared by Pamela Boatright 🌟PamelaQuilts (@pamelaquilts) on May 4, 2017 at 1:19pm PDT

I'm not too sure why it's so hard to act on changing something I don't like in a project - maybe it's the whole idea of getting out the seam ripper?

I have been working on a project with some vintage embroidery blocks and found that I did not like the way the bright red strips jumped out.

After thinking about it all weekend, and making  a bunch more blocks, I decided that I needed to change them.  And I am much happier with the way the blocks look now!  Luckily there were only about 7 strips to take out in all.

I really need to be more confident about making changes when I see that something isn't quite right, especially when it's at a stage where it's easy to make the change.  I could have saved myself a little time ripping out this afternoon, but it was totally worth it.

The next step on this project is to applique more heart blocks.  It's coming out really cute and I'm excited to finish the top so I can start quilting it!  I plan on some special quilting on this one, and look forward to spending the weekend working on it.  Hope you are enjoying your week as well!