A little bit of sewing

I machine quilted my Silent Gift mug rug. (See last post to read the beginning of this story. It's a good one.)

Simple in the ditch foot walking. I did both side of the inner border and a diagonal line in the middle. Then I removed the rest of the pins and I found this

Ah! What the @%&$ !!

Since I had fabric to spare I could afford to just cut it off.

Then I worked a little bit with the tweezers and all was okay. But I still hated the diagonal line... ... so out if came. I walked the foot in the ditch around the 9 HSTs in the middle to square it off beautifully.

Ta-Dah!!

During lunch break at work, I will hand-sew down the binding. (Ha! during lunch break, hahaha! No you won't. ) It's true that lately the weather is so nice, we usually spend our lunch hour outside. Oh well, I'll find some time.

That's all for today.

You have fun, now you hear.

;^)

P.S. Yes, I did try to fix the middle HST. It's still not perfect but fits in much better, in my book anyway. :^D

Silent Gift

Sometimes, things happen and it just make you smile. I have such a smile today.


Remember me talking about my newly made thread-catcher?

Remember me talking about the group of ladies I sew with on Wednesday?

Remember who was sitting next to me?

This is Monique. She worked on her pineapple quilt. After showing off my new thread-catcher, she asked me if she could put her bits of threads in my basket too. Of course, I said.

These folks all know that I play with little bits of fabric to make crumb blocks. At one point I thought that the thread-catcher was filling up pretty fast but saw little bits of fabric. Of course, there's a lot of trimming when doing a pineapple quilt and I left it at that.

Yesterday, I got to my thread-catcher and looked inside.

 Well, those "bits" of fabric were not that small. So I started plucking all the fabric out of there. I wonder if she did it on purpose? Maybe she didn't realized the gift she made me.

I started to assemble the little triangles together.

She used some gorgeous blues. 

These finish at 3/4 inch. But there are so cute. 

All the HSTs are made with her little triangles. The borders are made with my fabric. 

I now have the cutest souvenir of my first sewing session with these ladies. 

I was thinking of quilting it by machine when I saw the middle HST. 

I have lost a few of the points and I don't really care, but the one in the middle, like a disjointed nose on a face, is really bothering me. What happen there? Now I see that the top inner border is also crooked. Sigh! Should I? 

This will be my favorite mug rug. Ever! 

I still have one "big" piece of her gorgeous fabric to incorporate into another project. Yeah! Thank you, Monique. You are precious. ♥ 

That's all, folks!

;^)


Edit: like everyone, I can't reply by emails to your precious comments. For those that I know the email address, I will try to reply. Thank you for patience during these trying times.  ♥ :^D


Joining Cynthia for more fun with Oh Scraps!

Wednesday Sewing Club

On the first Wednesday of the month I get to sew with a lovely group of ladies. I did took some pictures this time and want to share them with you. Here goes.

At the front, Monique is working on her Pineapple quilt. Lovely civil war blues she has in there. Then, my working station and at the far end you see the back of Carole. We have plenty of room.

Michelle, who has her own quilting business and teaches sewing classes, showed us her finished interpretation of a mystery quilt. Well, except for the binding as this was her project for the day. Bindings, bindings and more bindings.
Claire is at the pressing station, Carole still has her back to us, then comes Michelle talking to Francine with Françoise, then Monique, Yolande (practically invisible here) and Anne.

This is the mystery quilt in question. Awesome, right?

The back is just as beautiful.

Here is Michelle with Anne at the pressing station.

Look at the fabulous New York Beauty Anne was working on. The talent of this girl.



Hey, finally Carole is facing the camera. Quick! Take a picture. She's holding her first finished Skateboard block.

Great job, Carole.


I took a picture of the cutting station with Lucie hard at work but it is too fuzzy to show. Sorry, Lucie.


Anne brought a top that Michelle will quilt on her longarm machine. The top is full of tulips.

I find it so cheerful and summer fresh. Love it, even though I am not a flower girl. Anne had pieced the back with the leftover fabric and it is just as cheerful.

Awesome job, Anne.

Here's another quilt that Michelle had to bind. I didn't took a picture of the third one and the two table runners.

This is what Claire was working on. Well, this one was already finished. She brought it so we could understand what she was doing. It's a ribbon quilt.

It's a baby quilt with 4 or 5 inches blocks (I can't remember which). Between each row, or more like on each row seams, she zigzags a ribbon. When every thing is done, she zigzags a ribbon on the vertical seams. Hopefully you can see it better in the next picture.

click to enlarge

The one she was working on was all purple fabric and the ribbons was one color only so she didn't have to change the thread color every time. Isn't it a cool idea, though? It was awesome in person but too demanding for this little girl to give it a try. Wonderful work, Claire.


And what have I done, you ask. I worked with flannel and did 6 square blocks and 10 star blocks.

But I brought back home a whole lot more than just that. My head is full of tips and tricks and inspiration too. I asked Michelle how to finish a hexagon quilt and now I know. You just might see the Quilt of the Century on this blog in a near future. Fingers crossed.

Like most of you, I can't reply to comments anymore. But I will read them diligently as I love, love, love hearing from you. So don't be shy and say Hi!


;^)


Joining Sarah for Can I Get a Whoop Whoop?
Joining Cynthia for Oh Scrap!

My Shame

You might have noticed that I am not blogging much lately and it takes fooooorrrrever for me to reply to comments.

I could line up an impressive list of excuses but it's always better to say the truth so ... this is the reason. I don't want to be in the basement because ...

Order and Chaos had a fight in my sewing room. Guess who won?

My mojo left the room a long time ago and I just can't talk it back into my life it seems.

If depression had a face, it might look like this.

Until last Thursday.

I had signed up for a little course on how to sew a thread catcher which I did go to last Thursday. It was so much fun to be with people and sewing again that I believe I'm on the rebound.

 This is the little thread catcher I did. It has a pincushion on the desk and a deep basket for the thread. Cute, right?

A really deep basket, lol.

Now I am armed to tackle the monster sleeping on my sewing desk. En garde!


Happy sewing.

;^)

Late Again

for Scrap Attack Challenge hosted by Sarah at Confessions of a Scrap Addict. She is doing so well with her challenges each month and I can barely keep my head above water. I did even worst in April. 😒 There's no need to cry over spilled milk; just clean up the mess. So I am rolling up my sleeves and will try harder in May.

Now what will I be working on in May?

WhooHoo! A scrap basket. :^D  I am happy about that. Angela called Pink to be our Rainbow Scrap Challenge color of the month. I don't have a lot of pink, so instead I will do a yellow scrap basket since I have done nothing with yellow last month. :^b

What I have done in April is practice. I am practicing my penmanship so it looks "vintage"-ish.

Some of you already know that I want to write the names of each lady on her own Churn Dash block. The blocks were a swap hosted by Barb from Fun with Barb. I can hardly believe that, out of the 44 participants, 30 people have answered me, identifying a total of 42 blocks. I am so happy with the respond and I thank each and every one of you. I am also very stressed as I only have one pass at writing the name down properly. There's no room for a mistake, misspelled, or misshaped letter. Every thing has to be perfect on the first try. So, I am practicing still. I bought some very good markers to write on the fabric. And while I was at the fabric shop, I got a few extras.

Some black and one orange fat quarters. Yes, the one on the left is orange but it got camera shy and turned bright red. These fabrics are an incentive to work on my Judy Martin's Shoreline Log Cabin quilt.

On the first Wednesday of the month, I joined seven ladies and we sew together. I managed to do 21 centers for the crumb quilt. If you look closely, you'll notice there's a lot of pink in there. They are made with flannel and measure 4.5 inches.

These two are the crème of the lot.  They are pieced with 9 different fabrics (left) and 10 different fabrics (right). What is wrong with my head? Does it mean I am missing  my 365 Challenge quilt?


That's all folks! See next time.

;^)

Joining:
Sarah - Confessions of a Fabric Addict
Angela - So Scrappy
Cynthia - Oh Scrap!

Les paniers de Cécile (Cecile's Baskets)

Back in January, I started to work on some basket blocks for a SAL with Cécile in France. I kind of knew what I wanted.

Unfortunately, I don't know how to sew it. 

This is the kind of setting triangle I want. Unfortunately, I am missing a corner stone on top of the blue basket. Duh! The yellow sashing has to be with the basket not with the setting triangle. 

This basket at the bottom has a corner stone on top. Unfortunately, it should have been sewn at the bottom. Now I have two corner stones together. Arghh! 

Some pieces have been ripped apart so often that I had to cut a new piece. The yellow fabric love to follow the seam ripper. (Darn!)

Today is the deadline for the Basket SAL and, unfortunately, this is all I have to show. (Just imagine it with yellow all around instead of the gray carpet, okay? Thanks.) I promise to send Cécile a picture of the finish project in a near future.  Just not today as I have said enough bad things for one day. 😖

You can see more basket quilts at Cécile's place in a day or two. Enjoy! 

;^)

Sew-a-thon Wednesday

Last Wednesday was my "Sew-a-thon" with new friends.  And you know what? I forgot my camera!!! Duh!

But I can still show you what I worked on.
The scrappy flannel quilt is half way done. It needs another 5-6 rows to be long enough for DS#2.

Made with crumb blocks.

Stars and Squares

I have to make more blocks but the newest white flannel yardage that I bought is thinner than the one in the first blocks. That stumped me.

But, hey, it's an utility quilt so, does it really matter (to my sons) if the whites aren't matching?

Let the sewing continue. :^D

I had a lot of fun with the girls on Wednesday and can't wait for first Wednesday next month. On the other hand, time flies by fast enough as it is, I don't want to push it. 

Enjoy!

;^)


Joining Cynthia for Oh Scraps! 

Easter Monday and way too much ...

... Easter eggnog.

Have a wonderful week.

;^D

Scrap Attack April Challenge

Oh! Bother! I am really not good at this game. My March Scrap Attack Challenge is incomplete. Surprised? Not at all. I seem to be stuck in another time zone, like a month behind time zone. Ha!

Let's look at this mess partial success closer.

It all started with this little piece of paper. It calls for a string project. Do I have enough strings to make a project?

Check. The supply is plentiful. 

What got done with the strings? A placemat.

Well, I did say it is a partial success. (It looks as if we are at the beginning of March instead of at the end of it. 😒)
Since I (usually) participate in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge with Angela  (which I seem to be also neglecting lately)) I used some purple, color of February, and some light green, color for this month and ... and ... well ... yep, that's all.


So what happened?

Well, this happened. The February Scrap Attack Challenge is done.

This is my lab coat that I use when I paint. It is NOT coming apart. Ever. But all the other shirts did.

The drawer once looked like this.

I now have all these lovely plaids to play with whenever I want. I am so happy.

There is a lot of shirts in this pile. Come to think of it, I should have count them. Rats!

I was surprised to find some weren't shirts but yardage. Yay! Bonus!

Two of them weren't plaid at all, hahaha. The one on the left was almost all done since it was used for my big hexagon quilt. You can see it here in the before last picture.

Ta-dah! This is the same drawer now full with usable plaid shirts. There's even some room left ... maybe enough for the shirts from the second drawer to fit in? We'll see when I get there.
Thank you Sarah for hosting the Scrap Attack Challenge. I might not be very good at it, but I am not giving up and will get better (I hope) before the end of the year. 😊

So what else happened in March?

I did do a little bit of sewing.

My design wall has Cécile's little baskets challenge. Very slowly, the sashing is added. The deadline is for April 15th. Well, since you know me, you know this won't happen. It will be done on May 15th. Ha!

Two little 3.5 inches block from the 365 Challenge Sampler were assembled.  On top is "Tangled Briars" a.k.a. "Barrister's Block" (with a beard). It has 44 pieces. Below is "Propeller" with 17 pieces. (I have seen this block somewhere before and I really liked it. Hmmm, I think I will do a little research in my Pinterest account.)

I have signed up for a "sewing-a-thon" or something like that. This lady has rented a hall, is setting it up for quilters and called anyone who is interested to line up. I did. It will happen on the first Wednesday of the month for the next three months. (We'll try it for 3 months and take it from there.) The doors open at 8 am until 8 pm. Since I still have a full-time job, I will be there around 1 pm until ... the bobbins run out. I am so excited about this as it is only 15 minutes drive from my place. Someone has answered my prayers.  😁

I will take my little basket blocks and try to get it all assembled. I need to take something that doesn't require much attention to detail as I know I'll be curious to see what the others are sewing and chat with them and ... hopefully, at one point I'll sit down and stitch for a bit. 😉

The Scrap Attack Challenge for April is ...

Cut up the fabric in the Big Pieces drawers. Well, that's not a portable project I could bring to the sewing-a-thon. Wish me luck.

That's all for now. I have a very long weekend off, so some sewing just might happen. Hope you have some fun with fabric too.

;^)