Taraxacum

Another week gone by. I was sick most of it with flu. This one is a real stalker that won't leave me alone. Sigh! 

Nevertheless, I sewed. With green. 

This is Ladies Wreath. I did a test block back in 2023. Now that I have the cutting measurements on my design wall, it's easy to spot fabric that would work for each project. Maybe I didn't do such a good job at picking out the fabric for this block. 

Hopefully, it will blend in when more blocks join the party.   

I also had fun with this gorgeous print. I wish there was more in the bag but nope. That's all I got to play with. 

Some fabric were permitted to audition for the Puss in the Corner block. In green, of course. 

No. 1

No. 2

No. 3

Which one is my favourite? See the end of this post for the answer. :^D 

Table Scrap Challenge, hosted by the lovely Joy, was design and started. It will have many greens as the theme for this month is "Fresh Cut Grass".

It all started with the tree fabric. (I don't know why the photo has a discoloration in the middle like that. The fabric does not.)

I added the sky. 

Then the field and my backyard, and finally the cut grass. 

Granted I could have used a better fabric to represent the flower row but, good enough! 

See. It looks like my backyard with "Fresh cut grass". And the next day, what happens? 

This happens! Every time we mow the lawn, Taraxacum show right back up. 

Taraxacum! Better known as dandelions! (I've learned that this "weed" grows all over the world, except Antarctica.) I cut a few circles for the flower and sew them on top of the mini quilt. I was aiming for a rag quilt effect so I cut the "petals". I "roughen up" the petals and realized that this fabric does not unravel. Lol. Oh well. I still like it. 

You can reach Joy here for more "Fresh Cut Grass" version. 

Decluttering: following Joy's lead in this endeavor, from The Joyful Quilter.

This bin is a time capsule. We had to "depersonalized" our home when we put it up for sale. This bin hasn't been opened since 2013. It holds my jewelry box and pictures but I don't remember what else. Do I still need the "what else"? 

It's such a beautiful day that I decided to open it outside. It turned out to be a very good idea. 

I had a little collection of little perfume bottles. (Forgot about those) I am now allergic to perfume so these are leaving. Pee-yew, it sticks. A mandala astray? Nope. A little bottle of rocks? A souvenir from somewhere. Nope. Not keeping any of this. 

Matryoshka Babushka is also leaving. She used to guard my watches. 

Before working with children, I had quite a collection of watches. I'm keeping these two. The crystal bird was a gift to my foster mother. They gave it back to me when she passed away. I'm thinking of getting rid of it. The frosted glass box, bought on a trip, is a keeper. The silhouette of a cat is clear on the etched glass.

When we got married, I told my DH I would buy him a Ferrari one day. 

I kept my promise, lol. You can see the cat on the glass box better in this picture. Okay, so those are keepers along with the children's photos and the jewelry box gifted to me by my to-be-father-in-law on my first Christmas with my DH's family. okay, enough of walking down memory lane. Let's declutter and not much is happening here but I regained a large bin. 

Now, let's see here. One pair of very tired oven mitts, an old burned frying pan, cake decorating thingamajigs, 2 pens, another pair of shoes, two very used bath towels and a purse. Yay! Also a fancy cardboard box. 

Many Christmases ago, (you can see how faded it is under the lid) it held fancy soaps and lotions, and whatever not. It sat on the self in the laundry room, catching whatever was found at the bottom of the laundry machine after washing pants (mostly screws, nails and electric things). Well, no more. Thrift store, here I come.

Thanks, Joy for reminding us to part with things we don't use anymore. 

Back to our regular programming. 

I finished Shallow Pond ... AGAIN! While cleaning the cutting table, I found more blocks components for Shallow Pond. 

Well, since the pieces cut for this quilt are out and close by, I decided to add a row and get the quilt a little bigger. 

Sew up more blocks. Then I realized that the discovered blocks were some of the first I did and they were not assembled in the "right" direction. In the top left block, see how the green pieces are going in the wrong direction? Some unstitching happened. 

Then I attached the new row of blocks to the quilt. And I'm done, right? Rrrriiiiight! 

I don't understand why some projects become real "b*tches" when you are almost done. 

This is the last row. Yep! A rat nest on the back and not just a little bit ... 

All the way. 

I walked away at this point because I would have murdered that quilt! 

It did get fixed ... eventually. 

While working on it, I separated the two blocks that were side by side with the same fabric. Now, here's Shallow Pond as a top... for the second time. Not sure I want a border of birds anymore. We'll see. 

So what happened with Puss in the Corner? 

Was it your choice too? 

Have a wonderful weekend everyone. I know I will! 

;^) 

Come visit my stitching sisters for more inspiration. 

Angela at So Scrappy

Frédérique at Patchwork and Quilts

Cynthia for Oh Scrap!

Alycia for Finished or NOT Finished Friday

Nina Marie at Creations - Quilts, Art, Whatever

It's Table Scrap Challenge Time

It was one of those weeks you just want to drown in a glass of wine. So I did. Let's move on. 

Decluttering: following Joy's lead in this endeavor, from The Joyful Quilter.

I'm starting with this because it is the thread that unraveled everything else. Here we go. 

Yellow is the colour of March. So, 

Got the background and the yellow. Now I needed black fabric. Got that. Good! Went to the fabric store to get some Steam-a-Seam and a bit more (not needed) fabric. (See previous post) ANYwho! Now I need some glitters. 

Where are my glitters? 

Maybe in this drawer. Found some scraps of "fabric" that I kept in case the Artisanat group are asked to make more sensory blankets for people with Alzheimer. Out it went. The fake fur and the bag of lace will go to my friend Pink if she cares to have that. If not, thrift store will be the winner. 

Back to glitters. 

Glitters? 

In this container? 

I removed the shoe laces and the rest, which were to make things for Christmas Craft Shows, will be donated. 

Still looking for glitters, remember? 

Oh yes! Glitters. 

Glitters? 

In this container? 

I don't remember why or when I got these threads on the left so, they are now donated. On the right there's a 1 shoe lace. What? Trash, please. 

Back when I started to quilt, I used templates. I had a little walk down memory lane with these old templates. I lingered around each piece of memory, then out they went. 

Good grief, I know I have glitters somewhere. 

Glitters? 

Please!! 

At the back of a drawer, found some rubbish and a needle case with brand new needles. I'm keeping that! The rest was donated or trashed. So I don't count how many items get out of the house, I'm just generally decluttering and I love it. 

Still no glitter. 

I'm fed up of this! Jumped in the car, drove to the dollar store and got some more glitters. Do you want to bet that I will store these new glitters at the same place the others are? Surprise me, please! I need the glitters to finish my Table Scrap Challenge project. 

So, here is my Table Scrap Challenge hosted by none other than Joy at The Joyful Quilter. 

I usually don't mention what I keep and what I don't when I receive gifted bags of scrap. I don't see it as decluttering since it wasn't mine to begin with but the big bags of poly-some-kind-of-batting are going. Not working with that EVER again. I wanted to try it since it was right there but lesson learned. 

It is very fluffy to the point that my machine couldn't sew straight. 

This colourful musical note fabric is my backing and you can see how terrible the stitching is. 

I removed all the stitches and did the quilting my hand. Bad idea. I should have remove the poly-crap-batting too while all the stitches were out but I didn't. So, I hand stitched around the pattern glued to the background with the Steam-A-Seam bond. Because the batting is SO fluffy, my stitching close to the edge made the pattern pop-up, like it unglued. I ironed this thing down I don't know how many times. Maybe I got the wrong Steam-A-Seam. I don't know. It was just a pain. 

The same when I sewed the binding on. The corners were all a mess because the sewing machine kept getting stuck on the thickness of it all. I had to redo them by hand. ANYwho! Let's move on. 

I finally got to the glitter part. WhooWhoo! I was so looking forward to this. 

It looks so good in person because the glitters are like little diamonds. LOVE it! Very disappointing photos. 

Then I wrote the company's name and the SONG TITLE, which is the theme of this month's challenge. 

TA-DAH! 

Elvis, my love. I wrote Love Me Tender but any true Elvis' fan would know that he is singing Suspicious Mind when he take this pose. The glitters are the flash from the fan's camera taking pictures. I didn't write his name. Do I have to? I know who he is. 

I would have like to quilt it more, like sew some black lines following the curve of the record and add some line-stars around some of the "flashes" but the batting stopped me. Like I said: Never again. 

I will sew with yellow again this weekend and then take the end of the month pictures. We'll see next week how much yellow was used during March. 

You stay good, my friends. We had fresh snow last night (as you can see in the picture above taken on my deck) but I don't care as I know it will melt pretty quickly and my car still has its winter boots on, so I'm good. 

Thank you, thank you very much. 

Have a great week. ;^) 

I will visit these talented ladies over the weekend. Hope to catch you there. 

Angela at So Scrappy

Frédérique at Patchwork and Quilts

Cynthia for Oh Scrap!

Alycia for Finished or NOT Finished Friday

Nina Marie at Creations - Quilts, Art, Whatever

It Just Occurred to Me

Do you know what I don't have? I don't have a pink scrap basket! I know, right? I never had enough pink scraps to make a basket. Well that has changed (drastically) in the past few weeks. I have MORE than enough pink scraps to make a basket. Let's sew this.  

Aren't those Lemurs fun? Yes, it came from the big bag. 

Because I wanted to keep the "Paris Flea Market" selvage of the roses print (on the right), I simply sew it on top of the light pink. Unfortunately, when one sews after a long day at work... 

blooper happens! I sewed the other edge to the roses print. 😒 Easy fix. 

So, this is what I have so far. Not much but it's a start. 

Another thing I started was the Table Scrap Challenge and that one is now finished. Yay! 

Table Scrap Challenge is hosted by The Joyful Quilter and the January theme was "hot beverage" or Pink. Well, a hot beverage, for a Canadian, is a Timmy's! 

I didn't know what I was doing so I just winged it. Sewn some reds together, trying to make it look like a cylinder with shades and highlights. The cup is sparsely "fused" to the background. Then I tried to zigzag the edges. I glued the lid on top and free-hand machine sewed the lines on the lid. Not perfect but so am I. 

Yes, I know, the lid has no hole because I didn't want to spill my coffee on my brand new mug rug. Lol. 

I just sewed the letters on. It will fray but that's fine by me. For a first try, I'm very happy with the result. 

I don't Double-Double which, I have recently learned, is a typical Canadian saying. It means 2 sugar, 2 cream coffee. No other country says "a double-double, please" when ordering coffee. It has also been accepted by the Webster Dictionary as a word. Wow! I didn't know that either. My favourite Tim coffee is a medium with 1 sugar and 2 milk or a half French (Vanilla) half coffee. Yummm! 

The back is full of cups (in case I feel like a Peppermint Tea, or a Sun Kissed Ginger Tea.) and bound with red scraps. Ta-dah! 

Thanks, Joy, for the fun challenge. 

Come see the other takes on this month's challenge, right here: Table Scrap Challenge. 

;^)

P.S. This is the spool on the floor,

and this is the bobbin in the machine.

Which one will be done first? HAAaaaaa! The suspense is killing me!! Lol.

I will visit these talented ladies over the weekend. Hope to catch you there. 

Angela at So Scrappy

Frédérique at Patchwork and Quilts

Cynthia for Oh Scrap

Alycia for Finished or NOT Finished Friday

Nina Marie at Creations - Quilts, Art, Whatever

Table Scrap Challenge: Bird

I finally finished my entry to Joy's Table Scrap Challenge for March. ( I know I'm late but it's better than never, so they say.)

It started here: Table Scrap Challenge. And I grabbed this magazine from 2000! 

I was debating between doing another cardinal, 

from my Wall of Fame

a blue jay, or even a robin. So many to choose from. 

The challenge for the Artisanat group is Spring so I opted for a robin. 

Then I spotted this one from the same magazine. 

Well, that was a game-changer! Dug out more fabric. 

I have no idea what I'm doing ... but I'm doing it! 

I realized that I'd traced the pieced reversed. Oh well! 

My bird will face the other way and life will go on. 

I had to add a little bit of purple because, you know, Purple Month. Its feet are too small and I might change that ... then again, maybe I won't. 

Thanks, Joy, for these fun challenges every month. 

See the linky party here for more "Bird" challenge beauties. 

All the best to you. 

;^)

P.S. The challenge for April is Umbrella. I hope you will join us this month.