Good Fortune and Orange Twist

I've been working on a quilt that wasn't on my to-do list. What's the point of keeping a to-do list if I prefer to work on quilts that aren't listed? I don't know! I'm asking you.

Picture taken from Bonnie K. Hunter website

Good Fortune just captivated me at its reveal. Since January, I've been slowly patching units together to produce blocks to finally get my very own Good Fortune.




It's not completed but completed enough for me to present it to you.

Here is "Field of Poppies".

What I first saw in Bonnie K. Hunter's design were the flowers. Big orange flowers in a field and I decided to make the centres of my flowers black as I wanted poppies. I also switched the red for orange and the orange for red.

I love it! I'll try to make the flowers more apparent, visible with the quilting but for now, I have to decided on the borders.

I love Bonnie's borders as they lighten the hot/cold centre. I think they are too much for me to tackle though. I know me. I'll end up with one side two inches too long and the other side 3/4 inch too short. Should I give it a try? These borders take a long time to do I'm sure. None of the fabrics for the borders are cut so I can do whatever I want. I know I want more green but not sure what.

I hope the quilt will let me know shortly.

This morning, I went sewing with the Artisanat. We did some sensory blankets for people with Alzheimer. More on that next time.

;^)

Joining Angela at SoScrappy.
Joining Cynthia at Quilting is More Fun than Housework.
Joining Beth at Love Laugh Quilt

Keeping busy

My sewing room's been out of whack lately. I'm trying to make sense with what's going on around me and my conclusion is ... I have too many projects in progress. Or should I say projects not progressing?

This is still not happening. I'm stuck at the same place because the thread keeps breaking. After a cleaning,  twice, I'm now suspecting the quilt as the culprit. Maybe this junction is too thick and that's why the thread breaks. Would that make sense? I need to try quilting another spot and see how it goes. 

Good Fortune is taking shape ... kind of. Only 23 more blocks to assemble! :^)

My brother who came by last month, sent me some pictures of Mother's quilts that he has. It left me very nostalgic. Reminiscing a lot too. Would you like to see the quilts? Don't expect much and you won't be disappointed because he has no idea how to take good pictures of a quilt. So please, forgive him. 

Here goes. 

Made with cremplene. This will last forever. 

This one is crib size and made by my brother who owns it. I like this one a lot. 

The next three quilts were made with stencils and fabric paint. It was called Cameo and I'm not sure if it still exist. 

Mother did a lot of quilts with this pattern. She loved it so much. Not sure about this one, but most of the quilts with this pattern had scalloped edges. She hand quilted all her quilts. 

I remember painting these faces with my sister. It was fun. It's hard to tell in the picture but this crib size quilt has a prairie point finish. Mother loved that kind of finish on smaller quilts.

Back to the present. 

I tried to move 365 Challenge along and did three more. 

October first is the second corner block which I started back in February when I had enough of working with dark blue. It's still on my design wall and all the pieces are cut, so ... what am I waiting for? 

October 2 is Square within Square with 9 pieces. 

Then Road to Berlin with originally 9 pieces also.

Haha! No I didn't do the Y-seams version. It's easy to see that my block requires more than just 9 pieces.  It needs 17 pieces.  I'll try the Y-seams again when the pieces are bigger than an inch. 

Next we have the simple yet beautiful Split 9-Patch with 15 pieces.  

At the beginning of the month, I've received a huge bag of scraps and there was a big pile of tiny triangles. They've been very nasty and been nagging me. So I set them up by the machine and they are bothering me no more. 

Like a child, sitting on the floor, watching TV, trimming little blocks to 1.5 inches. I am far from being done as I have 181 HSTs to trim. That should keep be busy for a bit. I know what they will be but don't know the pattern I'll use yet. More to come. 

;^)

Joining Angela at So Scrappy

Joining Cynthia at Quilting is More Fun than Housework

Blue it is!

I didn't sew a thing this week. Good thing that last Monday was holiday. I was able to get most of these blocks done then. I did the last three today. Yep, it took me all day to make 3 blocks! Phew! September is done. 

Let's have a look. 

Sept 23 - Woven Ribbons - 12 pieces

Sept 24 - Ladies Wreath - 28 pieces

Sept 25 - Double X - 37 pieces The HSTs are one inch unfinished.

Sept 26 - Garrett Windows - 28 pieces

Sept 27 - Log Cabin Album - 23 pieces

Sept 28 - Stepping Stone - 41 pieces  This one is really as messy as it looks. It has nothing to do with the pins. I've lost many points, so much so that I didn't finished trimming it. I might start it over. Those geese are 1.25 inch by 7/8 inch. It is a hard one to sew regardless of how simple it looks. Arrrgh!

Sept 29 - Carol's Scraptime - 37 pieces  Another one with one inch unfinished HSTs.

Sept 30 - Toad in a Puddle - 33 pieces  I find my medium a little too dark in this one but it'll stay. Looking at this picture, I just noticed that some of the geese aren't flying in the right direction. Sigh! More ripping.

Total for the week - 239 pieces. Total for September:  909 pieces


The more I do, the less there will be of these tiny little 3.5 inches blocks. There is now only 92 blocks to go. Whoop hoop!

;^)

Joining Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict

265 Blues.

Done!

Yep! I have 265 blue blocks done. Only 100 little blue blocks to go. Whoop!

Road to Oklahoma - 14 pieces

Buttercup - 12 pieces  I should learn how to pin my blocks so they don't always look so crocked in the pictures. :^}  These two blocks are 3.5 inches unfinished. The cream piece is half an inch finished.

I'll try to finish September this week. Fingers crossed because as you probably know, when I plan something, it fails.



I'll join Kathy for some slow Sunday stitch while I stitch down the binding on the placemat. It comes from the stash of strings I showed you in yesterday's post.

I'll also sit at the frame and quilt Ohio Star Shadow for a bit.

By the time I am done with this quilt, it will be old enough to get its driver's licence! Shameful! lol.

Have a great Easter all of you who celebrate and a happy Sunday with plenty to stitch for the rest of you.

;^)

Joining Kathy at Kathy's Quilts.

Life's Surprises

Not all of life's surprises are nice. I have my share of hard time like we all do, but I did get a few nice one since I last blogged.

My brother came over to visit the family. He lives in Alberta, Canada. We don't see each other much. It was SOOOOOOOOO nice to see him again.

At work, the girl who works with me is on maternity leave since the end of January. They have finally found a replacement. Whoop! I might get home less tired now and have some energy left to sew something. :^D

Another surprise I got was this huge bag full of scraps! Goodness gracious! How generous some people are! It was mostly from Anne, but Lucie and Carole also pitched in. I was so thrilled, I was giddy, like a little child.

It came from the ladies I used to sew with on Wednesday. I was so touched that they still collect their scraps for me. Wait! Did I say scraps? These are huge scraps. Check it out.

Stacks of two inches tall. The white triangles are 6 inches on the short end! Anne has the most beautiful cotton. Don't know where she gets it from but it's really top quality. And she even gave me her rejects from her New York Beauty quilt. One of them is hanging on the bag in the first picture.

These are all strings ready to be used. Talking about strings, while I was puttering around, trying to find room to store the goodies, I found a placemat I'd started a long time ago when Julie from Texas had sent me a box full of strings.

I finished the right hand side of it and I'm sure I can find something in those strings to make a binder out of. (Thanks, Julie, for all the lovely strings!)

Some of Anne's work. 

I found a baggy of green and gold triangles. At the bottom of the shoe box, there was more green and gold triangles. 

Then, I spotted this. Oh ! 

Is Anne making Bonnie's Good Fortune too? I'll have to ask her. Mine is very slowly coming along.

Some blue, some green, some blue-green.
There was also lots of beautiful dark blue in the gift bag. Guess where these will end up? Yes, in my 365 challenge. Whoop!

Like I said, some aren't scraps but yardage, like this bird fabric and the beautiful lime and brown fabric in the third picture that was given by Carole.
Thank you so much ladies. You are such wonderful people. ♥

Needless to say that I spent a lot of time just admiring and petting and trying to store all these goodies somewhere.

There was this little bit of Aqua with a cute little fox on it. I just had to make something out of it right away. It became a little bookmark and it is with me everyday.

Talking about wild life, I had another nice surprise this morning.

On the other side of the racing track behind my yard, I spotted a calf. I thought who has a calf on the loose, has there is no livestock farms near by. I kept looking at it and then it hit me. It has no tail!

It's a calf alright but of the MOOSE kind. And it has a white spot on its back and on its butt. So cute! Sorry for the grainy pictures, but it was raining hard and I'm about 300 feet from it. It was happily chewing on the bark. I'm happy to see it has survived the winter.

Bye, bye baby moose. You can come back anytime you want. Take care! ♥

Okay! Back to quilting. Still quilting the flannel monster. I do one or two passes every other night. My shoulders appreciate the break.

I also used the dark blues from Anne's gift to make Mother's Fancy, September 20th. 

It has 65 pieces and measures 6.5 inches. The 9-Patch blocks are 2 inches unfinished. I love this one. 

And that's it for now. Sorry, it turned out to be a much longer post than I intended. 

Since it will rain all weekend long, I'll be in my sewing room if you are looking for me. 

;^)

Joining Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Quilting is More Fun than Housework

Wendy at Wendy's Quilts and More

I'm Getting There

It didn't go as planned ... as it usually does for me but I'm getting there regardless.

In my last post, this is what I had to assemble. The yellow fabric is an oldie from my mother's stash. It frays a lot. I mean A. Lot.

Anywho! During the week, I worked on the setting triangles. It was trials and errors but I got there. My plan was to have it finish for the weekend ... March 23!

On Tuesday evening, I had this done.

Last Saturday, I got this far. It was puckering from every triangle. Lots of un-stitching occurred. And more fraying too, of course!

On Wednesday, March 27th, I got it done. Okay, it's not perfect but done is better than perfect. It is less wavy than it was at first. Because of the fraying fabric, seam allowance on many places is only 1/8.  It looks good to me and I'm happy with it ... now that it's done, ha!
I wanted to pin it and quilt it but another one had all my pins and beat the basket quilt to the sewing machine.

Yes, I have finally started the quilting on the flannel quilt. It is so huge and heavy but I'll get there. (I saw my Doctor on Wednesday and he asked me to step on the scale. Ouch! I believe wrestling with this beast will do me good. :^D)

Also got all the greens for Good Fortune done. The bonus triangles aren't pressed as I know I won't use them for the border. I'll find something else to do with these. (The Joyful Quilter has a mini Supernova that is very tempting. Check it out here.)

And then ... sigh ... I did it. I finally got there! Got to the place where I can sew another blue. 😇

Jack's Delight is September 19 block. Don't know what's wrong with the lower left section of this picture but believe me it isn't crooked. It has 25 pieces and measures 3.5 inches. I love it.

Now that I'm there, I need to cut more little blue blocks and cut more blues for Good Fortune too. Oh! I'll me knee high in blues and I'll be as happy as a unicorn eating pink ice cream! lol.

;^)

Joining Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict
Wendy at Wendy's Quilts
Angela at So Scrappy
Cynthia at Quilting is More Fun than Housework