Some Hand Sewing

When I visited my friend Pink in the south, she gave me this great quilted piece. I love the print and the reverse side is polka dots. How could I not love it? 

At first, I was planning to unquilt it and use the fabric for ... something. As I'm cleaning my sewing room, I thought it would make a perfect mat for the bench my father built. It was a little too long, hence the small piece in the photo. 

I bound it with the darkest brown I have, no batik here but it will do. As I sit here sewing the binding by hand, I'm thinking this would be a good place for Raven to take a nap while I sew on long winter evenings. 

It will look better once the binding is sewn down.

Thanks again, Pink. We never know what great things lie in our scraps until it all comes together. 

(Now what to do with the smaller piece? I so want to take it apart, lol.) 

;^)

Joining Kathy for Slow Sunday Stitching

Putting Little Bits to Good Use

Like a butterfly, I go from one flower (project) to the next. I know they will come to completion one day and it might all be on the same day by the way I'm sewing these up.

One light blue Scrap Jar Star was born this week. 

One more yellow Jericho Wall. 

One more dark green Jericho Wall. 

One dark green placemat. 

Oops! Wrong side. 

Thanks to the Table Scrap Challenge hosted by Joy, I now have 7 new placemats. The chicken fabric is from the kitchen curtains we had when we first moved here, 25 years ago. 

Next is a black one. Since the challenge of this month is met and I still have a week before Angela calls the next colour I might as well start on another colour.  

Four light blue Star Bloom Blocks. 

It looks so good that it might entice me to buy more light blue fabrics. 

The fourth scrappy border is growing fast. These are for the Hole in the Barn Door quilt. While looking for yellow scraps for borders, I found some crumb blocks almost big enough for Chaser blocks. So I got them finished. 

And painting the house! Phew! We rescued the orange paint by adding some of the brown paint to the orange. I like it now. I just wish it was done already, haha. 

The house before 

and after painting

The section above the garage (picture of before) is half done as I write this. It was washed, scraped the old chipped paint, repaired where needed, and primed. It's been raining since Monday. We need a minimum of two days of sunshine to be able to finish this. Please, please, just two days. 

I don't always sew 9-Patch blocks as leader-enders. When I have no fabric ready for a 9-Patch, I sew little 1.5" pieces together from the container beside the sewing machine. It was fun playing with little bits again. 

This is a future Idaho Square Dance quilt from Bonnie Hunter's "Addicted to Scrap" book. 

And that's all. Can you tell I was on vacation this week? I even cleaned the sewing room! Yay me! I need to set up a place for work. I am eligible to work from home but my workplace needs to be approved by Human Resources first. They have to make sure my work stays confidential and that it is ergonomically suited. Anywho! It was a good excuse to clean up. 

Have a great weekend everyone. 

;^) 

I am delighted today to join Sarah once again from Confessions of a Fabric Addict for a Whoop Whoop Friday. Welcome back, Sarah. 

Also joining 

Angela at So Scrappy

Frédérique at Patchwork and Quilts

Joy for Table Scrap Challenge 

Cynthia for Oh Scrap! 

All Over the Place

It must be the full moon because I just can't stay put. Painting the house is coming along ... not so fine. 

The background colour is waaayy too orange even for me. It needs to calm down a notch or two. Let's revisit that colour mixer. 

My design wall is very busy with all kinds of projects.

A light blue crumb block is finished. 

Another orange one got done too. Yes, I know, orange is so last month but it was almost done and I wanted to finish it. 

Pink gave me a very light orange solid fabric and I just had to turn it into this Buckeye Beauty variant block. 

Then, there's the Hole in the Barn Door borders. I set them on the floor to take a picture. It was easier that way. 

Will the borders be on three sides only? I have no idea why I haven't started the fourth one. I guess I'm just funny that way. I will fix that today. 

A dark green placemat is also taking shape. I don't have enough light blue fabrics to fill a placemat so I decided to make the Dark Green placemat since I didn't have time to do it during Dark Green Month. Let me rephrase that. I have enough light blue fabrics but the variety is lacking. 

While searching for suitable greens for the placemat I found a dark neutral and a Framed 9-patch block was born. 

Field of Poppies has all its poppies blocks quilted. On with the next blocks in white thread. 

I'm starting to sound like an overachiever but I'm not. My sewing room looks like a mini tornado passed through it. The colours, the textures, the prints, on the wall, on the floor, on every flat and not-so-flat surface, it's overwhelming ... but fun! Too bad I have to go back to work tomorrow. 

Have a wonderful week everyone. 

;^) 

Joining 

Angela at So Scrappy

Frédérique at Patchwork and Quilts 

Cynthia for Oh Scrap! 

A Visit Down South

What do I do during a long weekend? 

I sew! 

and sew 

and paint!

The house needs a new coat. Of paint that is. It was painted over 15 years ago and it has been flaking for the last 2-3 years. Before it starts to look too much like an abandoned home, we decided to repaint it. Chipping the old paint away, patching and caulking here and there, followed by primer, we are very slowly getting it done. 

Yep, my house is orange. Surprised? Believe it or not, I'm not the one who picked the colour. This time I am picking the colour as I found the light burned orange too mellow. I'm heading toward brown. It won't be done anytime soon as the preparation tasks are taking forever. We should have started that a few months ago but it was raining. Sigh. 

I do take the time to sew too. What's a long weekend without sewing? A boring one that's what! 

Sitting at my favourite place with Raven pretending to sleep, listening to the birds, life is good. Only 5 more red blocks to quilt and then, I'll start on the blue/green ones. I'm hopeful I can finish those 5 blocks today. I'm off work today so pedal to the metal. 

Over the weekend, I dug out some light blue and it took me offroad. 

I ended with a Framed 9-Patch! This led to more ... of course! 

The one on the right was supposed to be rust. The yellow solid decided it didn't like the swirl background fabric so I had to switch them around. Picky yellow! 

So that's my design wall. Oh, wait! I think it's the other way around. It started with the T block and degenerated to the Framed 9-Patch or was it ... anyway! Let me get back on track. Where was I? 

Light blue blocks. Right, okay.  

These were assembled after. 

Two light blue Jericho Wall blocks. I have a lot of blues but light blues aren't as abundant. I had a hard time finding some that wouldn't disappear with all the white pieces around. I believe two is good enough. 

I wanted to know where this quilt was at. I took it outside and got blown away. 

I'm so in love with it!! 

It definitely needs more green, maybe another dark green and one more yellow, I think. It would then be a 6 X 7 rows quilt and a pretty good size too once the sashing is added. I'm happy with this one. 

I also took a little bit of time to go down south to see my dearest friend, Pink! I brought her lots of fabrics that were gifted to me and she had some for me too. I came back as rich as when I left, lol. 

She had spotted a machine in a second-hand store and she got it for me. Look what it is! 

I'm so thrilled even if there were no dies with it. Cutting is my least favourite part of quilting so you can imagine how over the moon I am about this. Now, if I could find a few dies it would be perfect. Let me know if you know someone who wishes to downsize her collection. Pink also gave me a thimble. I am curious how this one will work out for me. 

Oh, the sun just came out, time to get the sewing machine outside and finish those red blocks. 

Enjoy! 

;^)

Also visiting

Angela at So Scrappy 

Frédérique at Patchwork and Quilts 

and Cynthia for Oh Scrap! 

An Orange Quilt

I had fun with orange fabrics, maybe a little too much fun. 

NOT! 

There's no such thing as having too much fun! Too much orange on the other hand could become a problem.

 

Four more Jericho Wall blocks were done this week. I now have 6 orange JW blocks with the two done the week before. 

Yep! I just had to have dots! One orange needed to be pieced in order to be big enough. It happens when one plays with scraps. 

Two more blocks are cut and waiting by the sewing machine to be set up and sewn. 

 Two more could be cut from these fabrics as I thought of making rust ones too. I like the colour rust. 

If I sew all these, the total of orange-y blocks will be 10! WHAAATT??  

So I quit. 

No more orange for Jericho! After all, it's not an orange quilt but a rainbow quilt, right? 

So worked on the crumb Chaser blocks and got two done. 

I showed this little bit of crumb a few weeks ago. Can you spot it in the above picture? 

And as usual, the 9-Patch picture. I got a little bit of light blue in. 

What's with the block on the right, you ask? Well, it can't be all work and no play, right? Haha. 

Talking about playing, we got some unexpected visitors this week. (photos taken through the patio door)

Wild turkeys visited us last winter and returned this week to show us their lovely brood. 

My cat thought he could get a little one since the mothers are too big for him. He quickly learned that mothers don't let their guard down one iota of a second.

The babies are also very quick on their long legs. It was fun to watch. No birds were harmed and the cat is fine too. Well, maybe he got a little bruise on his ego. Haha. 

That's all for me. Have a great long weekend. 

;^)

Joining

Angela at So Scrappy

Frédérique at Patchwork and Quilts 

Cynthia at Oh Scrap!