Monday 28 March 2016

Done ... with February

Here are the little 3.5" blocks missing from February. They are DONE!! I am DONE with February !! YES!!  :^D





From the 20th to the 23rd.


The 24 - 27th of February.  On the last day and the leap day, we did the medallion. Here's mine.












I had to do a blooper, of course. I am glad I did though because while looking at this picture I didn't like the low contrast between the two borders. So back to the cutting board I went.






Better. Let's continue.

How about a group photo?




I have sewn 570 pieces so far and I am only on day 59. I will now start the March blocks and some Y seams. YIKES! I've never done Y seams. Time to learn I guess. Expect more bloopers lol. 

Joining Monday Making for the fun sharing and the fun of seeing the wonderful projects others are making. 



Until next time ... 


;^)






Friday 25 March 2016

Friday Finish

Finally, I have a finish!!  (And it's even not my One Monthly Goal finish lol!)



Remember Lori had a quilt-along named Country Roads? (Feels like such a long time ago) Well I finally finished mine. Yay!!



Remember how I had to undo the border because of a melt down under the iron? I was able to remove the border without removing the parts that were quilted already. Then I repinned the new border and quilted some more.






Eventually, only a little bit was left. So this morning I decided it was done TODAY!! Finished the quilting, sew the binding on and sew it down by hand. (Believe it or not, I have a little blister on my finger.)

Brought it outside because the lighting is not very good in the house today. It's very overcast. We had a little bit more snow yesterday; it makes a nice background for pictures.



Just because you love to see her, I took another picture. She told me she was not impressed that my hand was empty and she pinched my finger with her beak just to make sure I get the point. I went back inside and came back out with lots of nuts and seeds. She was happy! :^) She trained me so well lol.



Anywho! After, I was able to finish taking picture of my latest "scratched off the list" UFO. :^D  It is off to the laundry room for a good wash.


Now, look who's in the little frame, waiting for me.





It is "Shakespeare in the Park" turn. How will I quilt this one?  Blue on blue and white on white so the quilting doesn't show up too much and let the design shine? Or should I do the opposite and quilt the white part with blue thread? Outlined or something more "fancy"? I know one thing; come Sunday I am

joining Kathy and all her friends for some slow stitching so I better make up my mind soon.

For now I'll join Sarah for "Can I get a Whoop Whoop!"

Hope you have plenty of chocolate ... uhmmm ... sewing done this weekend.

Until next time ...

;^)






Saturday 19 March 2016

Happy International Quilting Day!

Guess what's on my mind today?

Not too hard to figure out!


Trimmed tiny little HSTs to one inch ! I'm trying to catch up a little bit on the 365 Challenge. They are taking longer and longer to sew as precision is the key word here. Speed and precision don't go together, well, not for me anyway.


Did my usual blooper. What's a day without a blooper ... (or is it What's a day without orange juice?) Anywho, had to redo part of this one.

I love this fabric and all I have is 7X5 " of it.  I want to use it in the 365 Challenge but where? The block finaly showed up today. Look!

I like it and I still have enough for part of another block ... maybe. (This picture shows its natural colours better.)

So here they are.This what I made so far on my Quilting Day morning. (Actually, did most yesterday hehe!)





Of course, there's more to come.

Then I jumped from February 19, Tea Leaf (bottom middle in the above picture) to February 23 because it sounded so hard to make. Being still early enough in the morning for my concentration to be foolproof (yeah right!) (at least, I got the blooper out of my system) so I started to cut the necessary fabrics.


With the little one inch pieces, I'll make flying geese units. Don't believe me? Actually, neither did I !! Took my time and drawn a line on all of the little pieces. Yes, of course being so small, it's easy to eyeball it but, 1/8 of an inch on these pieces is like half an inch or more on a 3.5 piece.


So no eyeballing for me.  I sew a hair away from the drawn line so when the fabric folded back, it would reach all the way to the edge.
Sometimes my hair is too thick, lol, and I had to sew again, just closer. I checked every single one before cutting.


If you think these are "dogears" that I've cut off, you are wrong.  These are the "bonus trianges" we get when making these tiny flying geese. Some of the extra HSTs I have kept but not these.  Gosh! I've seen dust bunnies bigger than these triangles lol.

So here are the littlest flying geese I have ever seen. The corner HSTs need to be trim down. They make the geese look even more smaller than they are.




Corner HSTs trimmed down. The red 9 Patch trying to bomb this picture is a regular 3.5 unfinished 9Patch. (Its not completely sewn together here.) The geese are 1.5 X 1" at this point. They must be flying really high in the sky to be that small. Much like this one.


This is a hawk flying above my head this morning.  Because I was outside, Mr. Hawk wouldn't dare come close and my little friends knew this, I guess, because they decided to drop by to say Hi!


Yes, having peanuts and sunflower seeds in my hand sure did help but it sang for me before leaving with a mouthful. So cute. The day is so gorgeous, it's hard to stay focus on sewing. (Yes, we still have snow here!) Annnnyyyywho!


Here is February 23, Capital T, with all its 33 pieces inside a 3.5 block.


I love it.  Heidi, who organized the 365 Challenge, always have a little bit of history for each block. So interesting.


Here's the little broken dish I made with the extra HSTs from the flying geese next to it.  Cute, right? Now what am I going to do with it?  Dunno!  :^D    It was just fun.

Here is block #2 of the Westering Women.  Now THAT was real easy to make after Capital T.  LOL!

Also, I have done 4 more Double 9 Patch.

Need two more like that and most of the fabric is already cut (as you saw in an earlier picture, the 9Patch) so that should get done today. (After that, all these blocks will go into the UFO pile as I don't know what to use for sashing. Every piece of fabric I have tried so far leaves me so not impressed. Twice, I have found and bought some fabric thinking it was the right one, only to see the lack of umph! when I put the blocks on it.)

Then, if there's still some daylight left, I would like to start on my OMG project. No, it's still not started. Yes, I do realize we are the 19th of the month. At the moment, my project looks like this.





Half pin-basted. Yep, well, I'll get to it ... soon.

This is what I used for the backing. It's denim thick. It should make a good rug and I get to use my older fabric. Yay!! (Yes, but you do have to finish it.) I know, I know!  Procastinator :^D

So this is all for the moment. I wish you all a wonderful quilting day.

Joining Cynthia for Oh Scrap! on Sunday.


Until next time ...  keep that needle going!  (I'll try to do the same.)

;^)

Tuesday 8 March 2016

365 (Scraps) Challenge

Joining Nicky for Scraptastic Tuesday




as I think these little bits of scraps (leftover from the "Shakespeare in the Park" quilt) do count even thought they measure only 3.5 inches unfinished.

Some of these blocks are so cute. They are turning into a real encyclopedia of potential RSC blocks. (uh! oh!) They also teach me a lot on values and hues. Yes, just little lessons lol.
I am now working on block of February 12.  I am just a little bit behind everybody lol.

Until next time ...

;^)


Saturday 5 March 2016

Sunny Day, Purple Month and OMG

As promised, I took pictures of my latest finish, My Secret Garden, today as it was finally a sunny day.

After a lot of hard work, (for me anyway),  here's my first finish of 2016.

Hexie flowers; some are appliqued and some are machine quilted in the middle squares.


The back is a patchwork of old fabric from the stash of fabric for garments. Again, did some pajamas for the boys with those cars fabrics waaaaaayyyyy back when.

I used white thread for the hexie flowers and gray for the leaves. Not easy to photograph, not easy to see.  Maybe from the back it would show better?






Not much better. Sorry!

Some I am really proud of, others .... well if we learn by our mistakes, I must study this quilt very closely as  I think I just quilted an entire book on what NOT to do lol.


Anywho!! Let's look towards the future and to the new colour for the month of March: Purple!





Peace and Plenty dressed in Purple. Cute, right? I think purple is a camera-shy kind of colour because it always looks faded when I photograph it, or else it turns blue!!

Talking of blue, here it is with its new companion.
LOL. There's the big red guy again. I think if there's only one M&M buddies per  block, they would be able to steal the show from the colours. At least, that's what I hope for.




And for the month of March, my One Monthly Goal will be to turn this beautiful fabric




into a rug for my oldest son's bedroom. I haven't started this project as I am not sure what kind of rug I can do with this. But since it has been waiting for a long time, I think I should stop thinking about it and just do it! You can probably tell by the picture that this fabric is not the usual cotton. It is much thicker, almost upholstery kind of fabric.  (Hurry girl, only three more weekends in March!!)


Right, and I have many 3 inches blocks to do for the 365 Challenge.  Ok, so I better get back to the sewing machine!


Linking with SoScrappy for the RSC2016.
Linking with Red Letter Quilts for OMG.  Hope to see you there too. 

Until next time ...

;^)