I Won a Fat Quarter

It wasn't just any fat quarter, it is a Vicki Welsh hand dyed fat quarter and it is beautiful.  I signed up for Vicki's  newsletter a few months ago and bought a gradient pack from her about that same time.  She chooses four people every month who are on her newsletter list and gifts them with a fat quarter.  Her newsletter is relevant, interesting and I have learned a few things about the care of fabric etc.  Vicki has an Etsy Shop.  You can find her here or here.  I found her fabrics to be a little brighter than what I found at Road to California.

The fat quarter I won

The pack of gradients

The T Shirt Quilt-I think I am going to set the squares in a black and white fabric and back it with Pink-either flannel or minky.

January Finishes

It has been a productive month.  A Million and One Blocks is done and packed away for our move, Tedi's quilt is with Marilyn who does beautiful machine binding and I heard she just finished it.  I am sending a few quilts her way as it saves me so much time and I am really trying to finish my UFO's.  Handle That and Petites Maisons Roses are also with Marilyn waiting for their bindings.  I am starting the Turtle quilt today.

I had some good news yesterday.  Went to the ENT about the congestion I have had for almost a year now and it can be fixed.  It is a localized infection that antibiotics isn't touching so he will do surgery and remove it.  It is a 1 hour outpatient surgery and he said it was pretty common and he has been doing it for 24 years.  I will have it done the first of March.

Another piece of good news for me is that the class I am teaching on the 15th, Exploring Color is FULL.  I am pretty excited!  I need to get back to prepping for it as I am subbing the 3 days before the class.

Feels so good to be finishing something.  I have been working on Dear Jane, Home Sweet Home (finished after 2 years last Sept.), and Pies and Tarts for a couple of years.  They are all labor intensive and won't be finished soon.  Adding some quick finishes is satisfying!

I am participating in A Lovely Year of Finishes and the Finish Along 2014 to motivate me to finish those UFO's.  The buttons for those two finishes are located on the right side of my blog.

Petites Maisons Roses

I had a free day today.  It had been booked but plans were cancelled-so I finished (except for the quilting) the little red schoolhouse quilt.  I added the 1/4 inch black border around the houses because there wasn't enough contrast with the hourglass blocks.  I used pigma pens for details in the windows and a piece of vintage linen for the bottom right one.  The binding will be the pink in the hourglass blocks.  It was really a lot of fun problem solving this little quilt.

I am going to stamp "Paris 2008" on the B&W check-bottom right in white.  My 3 friends and I went to Paris for our 60th B'days (except for Chris who was only 55.)

This is my favorite window treatment

Pies and Tarts is totally prepped!

It has taken a week, but I am done.  I believe I prepped approximately 1,000 pieces this week.  Now all I have to do is sew all those little pieces together into little round disks and sew them onto the background.  i will have plenty of handwork to do at night.

No sewing tomorrow-clean, clean, clean!

Large Pies Prepped!

I got all of the "pies" prepped and the tarts are going much faster as they are much smaller-I think I have about 40 left to do and then the whole quilt will be prepped.

I also worked on the dreaded T-shirt quilt for a couple of hours.  I have about 12 more shirts to prep-but most of them  just have the greek logo on them so they will be small pieces.

Today-hoping to get most of the little tarts done-fingers crossed.  When Greg gets home Monday night-my sewing frenzy will have to step back a step or two.  Love having the uninterrupted work time but am starting to really miss that guy!  His dog REALLY misses him.  He plays frisbee by the hour with Miss Hyper.  She plays games like "let's put my ball under the couch where I can't reach it and then cry until mom gets down on her hands and knees and retrieves it for me".  We are playing that now:)

PS-this is what I came home with from RtC Thursday:

I added a few pieces to my fiber collection-I am thinking the leaves will find themselves in the Cow quilt

I am starting to collect neutrals and corals and sea  foams for Regans quilt (2015)

And you can never have enough purple and turquoise batiks-can you? I had printed off 50% off coupons for E. Burns booth for all of us.

The only other thing I bought was Misty Fuse-have never used it but liked the demo.

Road Trip

What a great day.  Yesterday I took a road trip with friends, Debbie, Martha and Carol to Road to California.  We left at 7:30 and stopped in Temecula for breakfast at the Swing Inn  which was packed.  After a hearty breakfast, we headed to Road.  It was packed!  The first 2 aisles were so crowded we couldn't really see much but as we wound our way through it got better.  Some beautiful quilts but the trend to load them with thread and crystals is not to my liking.

I like this jacket

I seem to be drawn to quilts made from photographs

 

I really like Sue Spargo's designs

 

Sharon Schamber does exquisite work-I just don't care for the genre

 

Sorry for the blur.  This pattern is from Kim McLean,  Stars and Sprigs

 

 

You can find Kim McLean's pattern here: http://www.gloriouscolor.com/store.php?cat=352

My favorite kind of quilt-traditional pattern with an entirely new interpretation-color and design-no crystals-no over the top quilting-I LOVE THIS.  I give it best of show.

 

This artist won a ribbon last year for the first of the series which was the  Madonna done in silver

 

another quilt from a picture-love it

 

This was a mug rug in the Misty Fuse booth-I just liked it.

This year there was an outer tent with vendors-hard to find at best.

My lighting wasn't good-but this was a really cute quilt

All in all a good show-I bought some fibers, batiks, and Misty Fuse

My poor dog was beside herself by the time I got home-she never gets left for 12 hours

I felt so bad I let her sleep with me and we wrestled in bed this morning before I got up at 5am.

Going to finish prep on Pies and Tarts today so i can get rid of the table in the living room.

Tiny Treasures is going to be a Favorite I Think

Last night was Tiny Treasures

I had my houses all cut out and got 3 assembled.  I left an hour early because Lizzy was home alone.  I got to play "throw the rubber bone" for an hour before she went to bed so she got some exercise.  I took her errand running in the morning as she loves to ride in the car.

This morning I sandwiched my first Tiny Treasure:

And then I decided to get started on the last consignment I will ever take (this is the second part of the Tree project).  The young lady had cut out some of the tshirts so they are all going to be different sizes.  I will have to find a setting fabric so I can cut them into something I can make uniform units out of (or divisible).  So I have them all ironed and have a few stabilized with interfacing-I am just going to forge forward and get it done!

Lastly, I got all the templates done for the Turtle Quilt (which is the kids' Christmas14 present) and a second set done for mine after I move.  I will choose the fabrics and mark them today.

Before I say goodnight to the day I hope to quilt the basket quilt and choose the materials for the turtle quilt.

Tomorrow-Road to California with some friends!

Tiny Treasures Little Red Schoolhouse

The Tiny Treasures class is Tuesday night.  Our block for this month is Little Red Schoolhouse-lots of 1in-2in pieces to precision piece.  I got most of them cut last night.  Today I'll make the template and cut the roofs.

This is the book example:

Quilt finishes at 16x16

For the most part, I am challenging myself to confine my fabric choices to my stash.  A couple of years ago, I went to a cute little shop in Columbia City, WA (a suburb of Seattle).  Sadly she just closed after 2 years.  I bought 3 or 4,  1/2 yds of french feeling fabric that was 1/2 off.  It has languished at the bottom of a drawer ever since.  These little houses reminded me of the little cottages along the railway that i saw from Paris to Versailles-so little Red Schoolhouses will now be Petites Maisons Roses (Little Pink Cottages). 

I have the theme, the project box:

Last night it was empty and open and our Bertha cat curled up in it and spent the night-should have gotten a picture as she barely fit.

And of course, the fabric (except for 1 piece of the quarter square triangles):

Voila!

I am really not a pink/black/grey girl, but my focus this year is to extricate myself from my box and make good fabric decisions whether it is my favorite fabric choices or not.  I liked the fabrics well enough to buy them and stuff them in my luggage afterall:)

The other very nice part about the Tiny Treasures club, is the friendships being formed.  The leader, Tracy Potter is a true Art quilter.  She has a real sense of good design and execution.  Some of my favorite people attend this class.

Handle That!

I started going to a Tiny Treasures class once a month last November.  This was the quilt chosen for that month.  I missed December's and wanted to at least get the top done before Tuesday when we start on the next one.  We are using the book, "101 Fabulous Small Quilts"  put out by That Patchwork Place.  I think it will be a good way to test colors, contrast and texture without doing a large quilt. This will finish at about 22x28.  When the quilting is done, I am going to add more beads and ribbon to the one basket on the left-it is supposed to be autobiographical-a basket with attitude:)  Right now I am thinking a dark purple binding.

Used my first piece of hand dyed fabric (green) that I bought from Vicki Welsh on Etsy.  

Always one that walks to the beat of a different drummer

This was the original picture all in Civil War fabrics:

 This was on my 2014 list-so, even though I am out of order-i am still focused on the LIST!

Prepping for Pies and Tarts

I am prepping my EPP pies and tarts pieces without sewing.  I am using starch and a hot iron just like the applique process without freezer paper.  I am using and reusing the paper wedges I was sent.  I have to say it is working wonderfully.  The edges that fold over the paper are crisp and everything stays nicely together without sewing until you start whipstitching the pie pieces together.   However, it takes a while and I needed a place to safely keep the hot iron  to complete the process.  I  had been prepping as I went and decided since this UFO has to be done by April-I would get all the prepping done in one fell swoop.

Much to my husband's chagrin, I pulled a 4 foot table into the living room and made a workstation near the outlets.  This way I am not locked away for long hours by myself doing TV watching work.  I will finish cutting the fabric pieces tonight (only 25 large and 25 small sets to go).  Then I can start starching and ironing those and the approximately 25-30 sets cut but not ready to stitch.   That way everything will be ready to grab and stitch and I may get this done on time! Greg leaves Sunday for Medford to oversee the destruction that has become our house-pipes burst, water flowed, walls need to be removed and replaced-but, since the wiring needed to be redone anyway-thought it would be good for Greg to be there to oversee and coordinate the starting of the process.  God is good-we have rental insurance that will even pay the lost revenue-amazing that a seeming disaster could end up as a good thing:)-so, i can leave my table up for another week-I'll get lots done!

Temporary work station-Finally got a sleeping aid-am waiting to take it 15 min. before bed-and yes!  I slept a whole night!

 On a personal note.  My allergist has done all she could-she is stepping me off the prednisone-Thank-you, Jesus!, and referring me to an ENT. The effects of the prednisone were horrific-couldn't think, couldn't stop talking, couldn't put a reasonable statement in front of another, couldn't stop scratching, irritable and edgy-worried about what I would say-so I have kept myself more or less confined for everyone's sanity So, we'll see where this route leads me.  Still can't hear because my ears are blocked and my breathing is better but isn't where it should be.  She is a good doctor and really has tried everything to help.

Pieces ready for cutting, small tarts done and counted, large pies done and counted, pieces on bottom row all cut 2 sizes and finished but not yet joined squares on far right

Three rows out of 10 have been appliqued and joined-probably will complete it in 2, 3row and 1, 4 row piece.  I would actually like to quilt this on my home machine but I will take it to the longarm while I live in So. Cali.  Will have plenty of time to get into the home machine quilting when I move.

I still love this quilt-it will be my first Batik fabric quilt that I am keeping.  It is bright and random and now I can check EPP of my list-never need to do that again:)

If anyone is reading this-know that I appreciate it and am praying you will have a blessed day know ing that the God who created the universe cares about every minute detail of your life!