Working on my purple stars

Wow!!!  I had most of Sunday to play in my sewing room.  While I washed the binding fabric for the Dresden plate, Split nine patch and another quilt, I continued to tackle little piles around the room.  Things are coming together and getting taken care of.

I was also making some headway on my Purple stars quilt.  I have all the fabrics bundled with the green apple corner units together, the purple strips, the dark green blocks and the black for the small stars.  Each one of these blocks takes a half hour to complete.  During the day I managed to complete ten full blocks.

The bonus, while making these blocks, is that for every block of the purple stars that I made, I was able to get one full block from my Xmas/Solstice star quilt done.  All my sub units for this block are done and bundled together too, ready to be assembled.  

When I do all that I can do with the purple star block, I use the units from this Xmas/Solstice star block as my leader/ender.  By the time the one is done the second one is also done.  It's a win win!!!

I now only need five more purple star quilt blocks, to finish all the blocks needed to complete the top of the quilt.  Yay!!!

Yesterday, I attached the binding by machine to the Dresden plate quilt.  Now it is ready for some sit down time to tack the binding down by hand.

I am a very happy camper!

My first bear paw block for my brown bear quilt

I needed a pattern that would use up my scrap stash of brown fabrics.  I usually don't use a lot of brown, but somehow, I ended up with a large pile of strings.  A lot of them were given to me and I did do a quilt recently for my sister, that used a hand full of browns/beiges.  

I was picking my brain, trying to come up with an idea for the browns, when it hit me.  I have always wanted to make a quilt using the bears paws block.  It was on my wish list for the longest time, but kept being pushed down the list.  Well, what better pattern is there for using up the brown scraps.

This is the block I am making, which also includes sashings.  All the browns are from my scraps, including the half square of the claws.  I even used the neutrals from my scrap bin for the other half of the claws, the solid black of the square-in-a-square cornerstones are from my scraps as well and the deep burgundy red comes from a small piece of fabric from my cupboard.  

So far the only fabrics I purchased are the burnt orange and the blue used to make the sashings in order to pull all the fabrics together.

I am really liking this block.  It was overcast here when I took the picture, so the colour in the picture looks a bit dull.  Add just a bit of brightness and you will have the true colour.

This is what I ended up playing with after I had a very productive sewing day yesterday.  That post I am saving for another day.

I realized, that there are a lot of quilts that I want to make.  Far too many to make in my lifetime, however I am going to make a very good effort at knocking off as many as I can until that time.  I had forgotten about the bear paw quilt, as an option.

I'm sure I posted at one time, my jars that I have, with tags inside.  One of the jars is called Quilt Want-to-be.  This is where I have tags, of the quilts that I want to make (they are like my wish list).  

Anyways,  I thought to myself, that I need to start a list.  This way I can refer to it when I have something I want to use up, that I can incorporate into one of the quilts I want to make.

Here is my current list:

***Quilt Wish List - Quilt Want-to-be

1. McCall's starring Retros......fabric collected

2. Quilt using summer flowers fat quarter bundle......fabric collected

3. Autumn leaves quilt......fabric collected

4. Ocean waves quilt in solids......fabric collected

5. Scrappy bento box quilt

6. Four patch argyle quilt

7. Nine patch strip quilt

8. Bee in my Bonnet, Granny squares quilt

9. Quilts using up scrappy strings......too many fabrics collected

10. Friendship star quilt using all the mini HST from purple stars quilt......fabric collected

11. Aunt Gracie appliqué quilt

12. Whimsical garden appliqué quilt

13. Postage stamp quilt

14. Jean quilt with coloured squares surrounding......Jean fabric collected and have some plaids

15. Quiltville playing with jacks....good for using up blacks, reds and pinks

16. Red & white puss in the corner quilt

Finished the Navy blue and cream quilt

Finally finished the binding of the Navy Blue and Cream quilt.  It took me a while, but blocks of time were just not available and as the quilt is 60" X 60" it was not very portable.  It's actually been done now for over a month, however I was waiting for a chance to take a picture of the quilt outside.

Yesterday started out cloudy, so it was perfect for taking the pictures.  Above is my navy blue and cream quilt.  Below is a close up of a corner.  I did simple quilting, as I wanted this quilt to be suitable for a guy.

While it was overcast I wanted to also take a better picture of my flower garden quilt.  I finished the binding on that one just this past Monday.  Just in time for the quilting guild meeting.

I am making some progress on the binding front.  I have seven quilts of various sizes left to bind.  Two of them are my quilts, one is a commissioned quilt and four of them are charity quilts, that I made going to Project Linus.  I have to get moving on them.  Hoping to have at least one of them done for the next guild meeting.

After spending the entire day out in the garden yesterday, my body is telling me it is time for a break.  I think I will try and hide out here in the quilt room all day.  Maybe I will go unnoticed....probably not though. Lol

Enjoy your day!

Aunt Bea's Parlor, Flower basket #2

I bought this pattern a while back.  After I finished the embroidery blocks from my flower garden quilt, I thought I wanted something to take it's place.  They are cute little baskets, all different with a variety of flowers.   The pattern sat there, as I got distracted with other hand work, but it did not turn out to be a waste.

Instead of me, my daughter decided she wanted to do them.  She loves to sit while watching reruns and do some hand work.  I think it also helps with reducing the stress of university.

This is her first finished block.  This is block two out of a total of twenty blocks.

 
At the time when I bought the pattern, my mother bought one too.  My mom started shortly after we got the pattern and has finished all the baskets already.  Now she is in the process of putting the quilt together.  She has all the full blocks done, but not yet put together.  She is pondering the borders and is thinking of going more scrappy with hers.

My daughter is thinking of a different layout altogether.  It will be interesting to see both quilts completed.  There is a long way to go, but when done, I will do a comparison post.  I like seeing the variety and different spins people put on a pattern to make it there own.

One more Dresden plate done

I am on a roll.  I keep singing that song in my head, another ones gone, another ones gone and another one bits the dust.  Lol.

With this one done I now have only seven left to do.

This week I have been on holidays doing all sorts of odds and ends.  In my quilt room I trimmed all the HSTs of various sizes, all the drunkards path units, finished quilting my cousin's quilt (pictures to follow) and also stitched up a label for a gifted quilt.  My room is clean and tidy.

In my garden I finished one corner path/dog run, some weeding and installed the little decorative fence in the corner to keep the dog out of the garden.  I made all the appointments that tend to be delayed and even plastered the ceiling in the livingroom.

All in all it was a very productive week with a bit of me time too.

Finished the small pumpkin wall hanging

I have a finish for April.  This one counts for my top 12 list for 2017.  So far I am up to date.  This month I barely made it, but luckily I had a small project on my list.  This is the first of my small seasonal wall hangings.

Here is a close up after quilting it simply in the ditch on the machine I decided to do primitive large hand quilted stitches to give e pumpkins some detail.  I like it.  I think it looks cute!

For the month of May, I intend to have quilt #1 done.  The quilting is going well.  I only have approx. a quarter of the centre block designs to do and the three borders.

May does bring on more work with cleaning out the gardens here and at my mom's, as well as doing more renos, again here and at my mom's, but I have to find some time for me too, so that I can quilt.  It's my sanity break.

**Progress on my top 12 list for 2017**  

1. Quilting-Lise's Dresden plate quilt (commissioned)....quilting in progress

2. Quilting-Sabryna's yellow nine patch quilt (family)....

4. Main work-Mel's romance & roses quilt (family)....

9. Main work-Purple star quilt (my own)....sewing up the blocks 

10. Main work-Grey, black & bright quilt (charity)....

5. Handwork-Reconstructed Dresden plate quilt (my own)....8 blocks to appliqué

6. Paper pieces-Xmas pineapple blossom quilt (my own)....

8. Leader/ender-Bonnie's mystery quilt (my own)....moving along nicely

Total number of quilts completed - 4
Total number of quilts left to be completed - 8

Completed quilts:

3. Spools quilt (my own)

12. Purple & blue squares quilt from Carol (charity)

11. Log cabin quilt from Sharon (charity) 

7. Mini pumpkin wall hanging (my own)

A late night post

This is a late night post, just because I am so excited!!!  I finally got the courage to use my treadle machine.  I've had it for many years.  My son is 14 years old now and I bought this when he was still young in daycare.  I remember, because when I bought it we got it set up in my livingroom, my mom looked it over, cleaned it, oiled it and got it running with really good tension.

While my mom was doing all of the above, the rest of us were sitting around watching and playing the name game.  We were trying to come up with a suitable name for my new treadle.

When my son was in daycare, there was this one little girl that used to favour my son.  She used to look out for him and kind of be like a big sister.  Anyways my son used to like her very much too.  We used to tease him often, that she was his "girlfriend".  So when we played this name game, not sure who came up with it, but this little girls name came up, and it just stuck.

So......I would like to introduce you to Lily my treadle sewing machine.  No electricity needed to use this baby.  If the power goes out, no problem, so long as it is daytime, otherwise I would need to sew by candlelight.  Isn't she pretty....just like Lily the little girl.

After all this time and I am just now getting up the courage to use her.  This is my first block.  I chose  a scrappy string block from my bear paw quilt, as getting familiar with a treadle machine will take a bit of time and with string blocks, there is no precision necessary.

This is soooooo cool!!!  I had to run upstairs to show everyone!  I did it!  I made a block on a treadle.

I am thinking I am going to have to make many of these blocks in order to get the hang of it, but it was fun, so I am going to enjoy it.  I have to get the coordination of the foot peddle up and down motion to make the block move forward, instead of backwards when it breaks the thread.

Off to bed now, but I know I will have sweet dreams, just anticipating some play time with this new to me treadle.