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 ...

;^)

The Mutation of a Quilt

The plan to finish a yellow and gray quilt, a UFO since 2013, has been everything and nothing like a plan.

Found on Hyacinth Quilt Designs,  the "Garden Fence" quilt flipped my plan of that day. 

from Pinterest made by Cindy (Hyacinth Quilt Designs)

I immediately started to play with my yellows and grays. It didn't took long for my poor little stash to run on empty, so some orange and charcoal fabrics were invited in. Then the unfinished quilt (more like blocks) was tucked away in a drawer for a long while. Some time last September, (in 2015) I brought it out into the light with the firm intention of finishing it. 

Little did I know this quilt had a few surprises for me along the way. It almost looked like a vendetta. 

 I did blog about adding a few more blocks.

 

 

Wasn't happy with it. Should I add sashing? Borders?

Cut it up and added a wide slice of fabric with gray wordings on white.  

 Yea, that's better. 

My Garden Fence is finally finished!! Yeah!!!  Or is it?

I found it too long and narrow.  I still wasn't happy with it.

So .... the first row was removed.  

Then the quilt decided it wanted some flowers. 

-Flowers? 

-Yes, hexie flowers like the other quilt full of hexies in the basement.
-Oh! you saw that! 
-Yes, and I want to be beautiful too. 
- Darn! 


So hexagon flowers were made ...  

 
 Then the flowers wanted to be puffy. 
-Puffy flowers? 
-Yes, very puffy.
-What the baloney is this? 

... still I added some batting under the hexie flowers.

 Then one flower wanted to be peeking from behind the sashing.   -Peeking? 
-Yes like this. 

-No.
-Pretty please. 
-NO! 

Needless to say time was flying by and we were well into November and the quilt was still not finished. But I thought I could still finish it before year end. So I started to machine quilt it. Stitched in the ditch all around the white sashing was the first thing I did. Then I practiced my free motion quilting with simple leaves and eventually graduated to the quilt. 

Then some hexagon flowers started to bloom in the center squares ... 

 

... leaves were growing every which way in between the blocks ...

... oodles of threads to bury ...

Then, MORE flowers sprouted amongst the words ...

Daisies and Daffodils

This one looks better on the doodle pad than the FMQ but whatever. If you can't make it out, here's the original drawing.

So much easier with a pencil lol. 

 Little flowers and hearts for the corners. 







Now what to do with the row of blocks that I removed from the quilt? Will it be used on the back of the quilt? 

-No. I don't want to be hidden behind a quilt! I want to be independant and have MY own glory.
-Oh! Bother!

So all the machine quilting, free motion quilting started over again. And of course, more threads to bury. :^(

This quilt mutated into a wallhanging and a table runner. It will brighten my kitchen (as soon as I purchase a pole to hang it lol). It hasn't been washed yet either but I couldn't wait to share it with you. ;^)

For these pictures, the boys gave me a hand and held it up. It looks so good ... 

I am soooo pleased with it but, GOSH!! that was a difficult birth!! 

I call it "Secret Garden". 
I promise to take more pictures during the daytime. I'm sure it will sing much brighter notes in the sunlight.  :^)


I am done!  I have finished it before the month end. So happy. I can link with One Monthly Goal because Oh. My. God. I. am. done!!


Now, where's my bottle ? I need to celebrate lol. 




Until next time ....


;^)



Joining Sarah for "Can I get a whoop whoop?"  (Confessions of a Fabric Addict) as this is a happy dance moment for me. 

Joining Zenia for "Whoomp! There it is." for the first time. What a lovely place. Come and check it out. 





 

OMG Time

Yes it is time to link up with Red Letter Quilts with a project (or some projects)  you wish to finish during the month.

As for me, February will see me finishing  the Garden Fence quilt even if I have to sweat bullets!


I've been working on and off on this one since I dug it out of the drawer in the middle of September, when it was still just blocks.

It has been assembled and about one third of it is quilted. 

At the end of December, I started to machine quilt it.  It's still squeezed under the needle of my little Janome sewing machine, waiting and begging for some of my time. Well enough is enough, The time is NOW.

Until next time ...

;^)

I am Blue too ;^)

So much Blue all over Blogland, so many wonderful, gorgeous, inspiring projects to see everywhere ... ahh! I love looking at everyone's work but I'll take a break from that long enough to show you what I have done this week. (which was not much.)

I didn't get to finish my UFO's for January. :^(  There is still too much quilting left to do for it to be finished  before the 31st so I have to accept that it is not eligible for OMG. I will work on it more in February.

I did the 365 Challenge blocks and I am now up to date.

So many little beauties in there ...

inspirations for Rainbow Scrap Challenge gallore ...

this one is called Year's Favorite and I ♥love♥ it. I am thinking of making it my second RSC2016 pattern (if only I could finish that UFO!!)  only bigger as this one finishes at 3 inches.
- Chantal, it is still a pinwheel pattern.
- Oh! My! Look at that lol.  Well, it is just a thought  ... for the moment. :^D

I saw some very nice blog posts (as always) with so much inspiration this week.

My friend, Dasha, at Patching Pixies, made a cute little zippy pouch and I did too.

I don't have a lot of experience sewing zippers so I am very happy with this little projects and more will join it. You can find the pattern at The Renegade Seamstress.  Thanks Dasha for sharing. ♥

Then, Lisa, at Sunlignt in Winter Quilts,  shared with us her beautiful fabric baskets. Well, I fell in love with those too, lol and HAD to make one ... or two ...

Since I pulled this fabric out for my RSC2016 but not using it, I thought I'd use it for my first basket. I didn't have the required fusible fleece and used interfacing instead. It is not as nicely stiff as it should be but it's good enough. Then I made one for my dear sweet friend 'Pink'.

It has already been delivered and she is in love with it. Then I looked at my M&M's fabric and ... hey, why not??

I won't use much of the big guys in my RSC2016 blocks (as they call too much attention) so might as well put them to good use somewhere. Isn't this one cute?  Front and ...

well, it could be the front too lol. It's an one-hour pattern that REALLY takes only one hour. You can find the pattern on Craftsy for free, right here.  Thanks Lisa for sharing. ♥

If you don't know these ladies, click on their respective links to discover two very talented, sweet girls.  Say Hello to them for me please. Enjoy!

And then ... my boy caught the flu and passed it around but I won't bore you with that.

Today, I hope to machine quilt AT LEAST five blocks on my UFO. My neck might allow me that many. There is a lot of turning and sometimes my neck muscles have enough of the exertion before I do.

Well, there's more than I thought there was.  :^)

Linking up with Angela for RSC2016 at Soscrappy.  Okay, so got to go as I still have many blogs I haven't read yet.

Until next time ...

;^)