Lots of Broken Dishes

I didn't realised I had been away from Blog Land for so long. I visited regularly but didn't blog as I didn't sew much and had nothing of interest to show.


I was busy with pleasant and unpleasant appointments, visited my dear friend Pink (and ended up sleeping over; what fun we had!!), celebrated my first born's birthday and this weekend, it is our wedding anniversary. I am also learning (re-learning?) how to knit. lol

On the sewing front, the 40 Broken Dish Blocks were done in this fabric ...

and 40 more in this fabric.

That's 80 Broken Dish Blocks. I am not calculating how many HSTs were involved in these blocks because each had to be trimmed!  :^{

I will mailed these blocks to Barb (Fun with Barb) on Monday.

This past week, I whipped up the Peace and Plenty block for my RSC2016 quilt. I really like this one.

I got the rest of the blocks out to see where I was since I haven't seen it in a very long time.  Yep, I like it.

Last night, before I realise what was happening, ( I was listening to an audio book, one of Agatha Christie's mysteries. I still love her books.) the RSC2016 looked like this;

Well, no point in putting this one back in the box, right? I'll be finishing this project today as I might have a few more hours of sewing time. I think another yellow block is needed and one in  ...  ??  ... another colour! :^D
(Sorry Angela for jumping the gun but I took advantage of the fact that I had time to sew yesterday.  :^D )


I haven't done the Westering Women blocks of August AND July. Like I said, not much was happening here lately. Although I did put together a few gift bags. In my next post, I promise to show pictures. (Mental note; take picture of bags.)

If you are wondering about my OMG challenge, I'll simply say it won't be done this month. Here's where I'm at.

No sewing done on it yet. I changed my mind more times in one day than there is hours in it. I finally started to cut the fabric so I must have settled on something.
I'll show you more in a future post. Promise.


Today, I am with Sarah because I want a "Whoop! Whoop!" for breaking all those dishes, lol.

I will visit also Angie at A Quilting Reader's Garden for the fun of seeing WIPs being done.

On Saturday, you can find me at Angela's place for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.


Until next time ...

;^)

365 Challenge is marching on and I have a plan?

I have made some blocks for the 365 Challenge. I am getting so far behind that I can't see the dust cloud from the group before me anymore! Whatever! I am having fun at my own pace. Slow Poke won the race after all.

Now I've said in a previous post, that June was the month with the most pieces. So let's see what I did.


June 8th was Odd Fellow Chain

73 pieces - I love this one very much but bigger please. All these blocks finish at 6 inches so they are 6.5 at the moment.

Kathryn is sweet enough to put one block with lots of pieces followed by one with a whole lot less. Thanks Kathryn.

Steps to the Altar

24 pieces

Twelve Crowns

121 pieces. This one has 48 HSTs, with 32 of them trimmed down to 1 inch. So what you see is half of an inch HSTs. The HSTs in the inner circle are constructed in a different way so there was no need to trim those. Again, thanks Kathryn.
Any block following this one would be less pieces, well that's what I am hoping for.


Salute to the Colours

40 pieces. It's not a bad block. My rendition doesn't do it much justice I think.

June 12th Hen and Chickens

44 pieces. I am sooooo in love with this one. Oh! Yesss, it's on the RSC list. You will see more of this one for sure.

To keep the chicken population under control, I think, Kathryn chose Eagle's nest for July 13th.

 45 pieces.

Gretchen came next

32 pieces. At this point, I thought the next one would have a lot of pieces because we had a few with, somewhat, reasonable amount of pieces. So ...


Girl's Favourite

40 pieces.
Okay, I was wrong but I didn't like the look of this one. Kathryn didn't assembled it as I thought it would be assembled. She made it as a nine patch and it was so easy to make. Now, it's on the RSC list too.  :^D

Okay so June 16th brought Windmill

and BANG!! There's the biggie with 104 pieces. Many, many HSTs trimmed down to 1 1/4 inch. Not all though, because those touching the bigger triangles are supported by a square on each sides and then they are trimmed. Much easier way to do than what I had envisioned.

If you have counted them, you know that there more than seven blocks here. Yep, well, I had some good days lol.

The total of this loooonnng week in June, is 523 pieces.
The total for June so far is 848 pieces. (I am barely over the middle of the month.)
The grand total for the year is 4 390 pieces. Oh my! I think I fainted a little. (lol)


Unfortunately I am running low on some brown / tan coloured fabrics. I'll have to go shopping. Poor me, right?  Lol.


Now I said I have a plan. Actually, I THINK I have a plan for my OMG.
I could finish June and July in the 365 Challenge. Nope.
I could finish my MIL's table runner. Nope.
I could make the placemats (not even started yet) for my friend. Nope.
I could quilt Shakespeare in the Park. Nope.
What really, but really needs to be done is ... a baby quilt. NO, NO, not for me. No, my gosh. Thank you very much, but no thanks! I would like to show a quilt at the craft show come November, to see the reaction of the public. Between you and I, I would like to sell some quilts.

SOOoooo, the grey fabric the blocks are sitting on, in the last picture, is what I would like to use as background fabric. Solid, soft grey with ... I don't know. There's too many ideas in my head I can't pick one. Anywho! That's my One Monthly Goal for September.

Joining Heidi at Red Letter Quilts.

Joining Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict.

Hope you go and visit too. There's so much goodies to see.


Until next time ... try to stay in stitches!

;^)

OMG 72 000

Oh! My! Gosh! I almost forgot to post about my monthly challenge. So many things happening outside the sewing room, that I haven't been in blogland in a while, well a week actually but regardless, I'm happy I didn't miss it. Let me show you what I DID ... and DIDN'T do. :^D

I hope you can see the subtle damask sort of design on this tone-on-tone cream /butter fabric. It is very lovely and I had it since ... been saving it for ... ever, you know that kind of fabric. Well now, I DO have a project that deserves this fabric.

Yep! It will be the border on the hexagons quilt. It's actually a bed sheet 104 X 101 inches. Pretty sure I have plenty to go around the quilt, lol. I DID try many, many yardage and some were too small or down right not playing nice with the quilt. But look at this one ...

Yes, I like it a lot.  The photo doesn't do the fabric justice. (blame the photographer lol. ) (A better picture is come up shortly.)

Remember this picture? I DID manage to remove all the border that was already attached to the quilt.  I was so afraid of piercing the fabric. But that's some thing I DIDN'T do. Yay!

This picture shows the fabric in all its beauty. 

Because the sides were done, I had picked out all the paper from the hexagons. Needless to say, reversed stitching three sides was a slow process.  I DID only one blooper. I am sooooo impress with myself!

The border was navy blue and this diamond is also navy blue. In my defence, I have to say it happened while I was watching the Olympics. My thoughts were more on my team than my quilt. (For those of you who want to know: both - the quilt and team Canada - lost. :^( And it's not because I didn't cheered them on.) On the bright side, it is just undone and not a hole. It'll a very quick fix. Yay !!

Now, you would think I had started to attach this new border on, right? Nnnope! That's the second thing I DIDN'T do. BEcause ... I want to applique some ... diamonds? rosettes? Which one would look better ? Both ? Another thing I am unsure about is, since the sides of the quilt are much more straighter than the top and bottom, am I suppose to cut the top and bottom borders larger than the sides or all the same? At the moment they are all 7 inches. I truly appreciate your input on any of these questions or other suggestions, as always. ;^)

Now, you might have asked yourself what this has to do with the 72 000 in the title. Well, I just wanted to write it down so I remember. When I open my blog today, the pageviews was 72 000. For real! I thought that was cool.

Okay, back to business. For my September OMG challenge, I know that I DON'T want to work on this project. I want something else but ... not sure what. Let me sleep on it.

Until next time ...

;^)

Linking up with Heidi for OMG.

365 Challenge: June begins

On the 365 Challenge project, I've (finally) started the month of June, which is the month with the most pieces so far, and the more pieces you have in a block, the more room there is for mistakes. (Please, don't ask me how I know!)

These are 6.5 inches blocks (finishing at 6).

The month begins with Arrow Points - 61 pieces

Crow's Foot - 40 pieces

Fox and Geese - 57 pieces ( I love this one!)

Aunt Mary's Double Irish Chain - 32 pieces. It was calling for mitred corners and I kind of avoid escape skirted the issue by piecing it in a different order. Hehehe.

Odds and Ends - 28 pieces (another one I really like)

Reversed Flying Geese - 54 pieces but simple enough. In this one, I used many little leftovers from the blocks and made a random layout instead of the more colour shading unit the pattern called for.

Blythe's Best - 53 pieces (not as simple as it looks)

and group photo as usual

In this picture are 325 pieces for 7 blocks. Next block has 73 pieces and there's one with ... let's keep that for another post, shall we?

Grand Total of pieces sewn so far : 3 867 and counting!

Joining Love, Laugh, Quilt for Monday Making!

Patchwork Times for Design Wall Monday.


Until next time ...


;^)

Whatever Wednesday

Not a quilting post but still about fabric.

Sue at Suebee's World had sewn a Jelly Roll together but didn't like it much.  She gave me a large piece of it and I had fun hunting some matching fabric in my stash. This past weekend, this mess slowly  ...

... turned into this:

horizontal bag

and then, this:

horizontal bag from other side and vertical bag

I so love my new bags. I did remove a few of the strips from the horizontal bag as it made it too deep. I used the strips for the handles of bag #2 on the right and the inside pocket.  The outside pocket fabric comes from my stash. I think it works well.

The green lining fabric was bought when I did DS1 last quilt (named "Take 21") but I didn't liked it. I sure do like it in this project though. The handles are the leftover binding from a quilt named "Far Away". The bags look very beach-y and summer-y, you know, fun bags!  Thanks again Sue!

I prepped 24 butterflies to decorate a dozen hair pins. I will bring these to the craft sale in October. Can you image that it's in two months ? Gosh! I have to hurry on these projects.

I had a lovely visitor on Monday. The rain had finally stopped and I stepped outside to find Mr. Neighbour's cat strolling in my backyard.  He is usually very shy and skittish, and I can't approach him much.

On Monday, he must have been happy to see me too because we played together for more than 30 minutes.  I had so much fun. I so miss having a cat.

He has a very soft purr, very low. I don't know his name. I should ask Mr. Neighbour.

Not sure the chickadees would appreciate me having a cat!  _^..^_

Anywho! Back to fabric. 

When the time comes, I will link up with:

Sarah for Can I get a Whoop Whoop? 

Cynthia for Oh Scraps!

Nicky for Scraptastic Tuesday 

as it might inspire others who hoard fabrics love projects made with scraps. :^D

Until next time ... 

;^)

Surprise Mail

The surprise box from Suebee's World has arrived from Florida today and (sssssqueeeeaaaalllll!) it is sooooo full of great goodies. Want to see?

When Sue says she filled up the box to the top, she isn't exaggerating one iota!!

I opened the box in the car with my car key as I couldn't wait until I got home to have a peek! (you know, ADHD people are like that.) That's when I started to squeal (and haven't stopped yet)!

Between the box and the lid there is a pattern tucked in there. That's how full the box is!!

Ta-dah!! It's the kind of package that once it's opened, you can't closed properly anymore. 

Sue managed to put all this in an 8 X 8 box. Wow!
Now, let's see what's in there. (Squeal!)

A quilt pattern from Atkinson Designs called Cheese and Crackers. A Sweet Treat Bag pattern by Moda and a messenger bag kit by My Mind's Eye. So cute, all of them!

Eight fat quarters of flannel. (I love flannel!!) Just in time as I have started to think of playing with my flannel bins.  A jelly roll named Aviary from the Three Sisters for Moda. So soft colours in this one. Yumm!

Needles, two spools of thread (the kind I use for hand quilting : Mettler and Gutermann) in pink. How did she know which colour I was missing ? A charm pack named Wildflowers by Sentimental Studios for Moda. A package of blades, embroidery thread, a measuring tape, a heat bond tape, and another jelly roll ... in soft blue! (laying opened under the measuring tape)

Nope! Not done yet. There's still more.

A variety package of cords to make necklaces from Jewelry Fundamentals (necklace making is something I want to try with the origami butterflies. Again, how did she know?) A compartment organiser for the little things needed for the butterflies and necklaces, I suppose. (so thoughtful!) A mini charm named PotLuck from Moda. A bag of hexagon templates.

Am I thrilled or what?



But wait, that's not all!!


She even gave me some of the lovely fabrics she used to make tote bags I admired so much on her blog. I can now have a tote bag just like hers. YAY! You can see the fabric underneath all the goodies in the fourth and sixth photo.  You can see Sue's lovely totes here.


Sue, you are soooo generous ! I thank you so much. I totally appreciate Every. Single. Item!   :^D

I know someone who can't wait for some sewing time. Do you?

Until next time ...

;^D   (ssssqueeeaaalll)

P.S. I wrote this post late last night and before publishing this morning, I thought of adding  a couple of pictures.  This morning, I couldn't stop myself from playing with the Jelly Roll Race "fabric" that Sue didn't like so much. Here's what I got so far. 

I believe I have enough for two tote bags, so I'm auditioning some fabric for the handles. It's always more fun to play with other people's stuff, isn't it?  :^D