A Couple a Little Ta Das

I have not completely finished a quilt in a long while, but I have a couple little projects completed.

The above wool quilt block is my part of a charity auction quilt my small group is doing this year for our local quilt guild. The quilt is from a 2005 series in Quiltmaker magazine named Home and Harvest by Erica Kaprove. I did the blanket stitch applique on my sewing machine and used DMC wool floss for the embellishing embroidery.

I have also finished another border of Auntie Green's Garden and sewn the first two middle borders to the quilt center. It is getting too big to capture in one picture very well.

Some of my stems are a very light green so the flowers look like they are just floating in mid air from a distance but on close up the soft lighter colors give a nice variety.

I think I am just going to leave it because I don't intend for this quilt to hang on a wall. I have started the bottom border next. There are five sections of flowers along the bottom so that will be my hand project for the next couple weeks.

I have also finished the Chubby Chicks top. I have the back pieced so it is ready to layer and start machine quilting.

My projects are lined up and waiting so to the sewing machine I go. Happy Stitching all.

 

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Needle Felting and Other Fun

We are back home from our winter travels. I spent two days unpacking from the trip and then a day packing some sewing projects for my small quilt group's winter retreat. It was fun to spend three days with my quilting buddies after being gone for 4 1/2 months.

Here we all are at the table learning wool needle felting and making Easter eggs and little chicks.

Betty brought all her wonderful wool rovings and was such a good teacher, she soon had us all designing beautiful eggs.

Our favorite was the top center blue (In the post header picture) who seemed to have uncontrollable orange hair and a face. We ended up naming him Wilson after the volleyball character in the movie Castaway.

One of our members won a Go cutting machine and we put it to good use cutting up our stash and making a quilt for our local Hospice.

I have such talented friends, the projects were hanging everywhere by weekends end.

The super talented Betty also made us this awesome, decadent chocolate cake with chocolate ganache filling and raspberry filling. The Singer sewing machine is molded and frosted rice krispe treat. The pin cushion, thread, seam ripper and applique flowers are all fondant. She followed a picture and hand painted all the gold filligree with an edible gold paint. Isn't it just amazing!

My sewing machine did not go along on our camping travels so I enjoyed doing piece work this weekend.

I have started a new toddler's quilt with flying geese, pinwheel, and applique blocks. I love these cute little zigzag chicken legs.

The quilt is a pattern from Black Mountain Quilts called "Chubby Chicks", a very apt name for us quilters after that cake.

Happy Stitching All

 

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More Patchwork of the Crosses

I am currently having great momentum on the Lucy Boston Patchwork of the Crosses quilt. We are still traveling and it is just a great take along quilt. I usually spend a day prepping about 4 blocksand then pop the glued pieces in a zip lock bag and take them everywhere to stitch when I can.

I am still surprised how fussy cutting can completely change the look of each block.

I sometimes take a picture of the prepped block so I can remember how I intended to stitch it together.

Then a better layout just sort of happens when I start sewing it together even when I fussy cut the pieces.

Happy Stitching!

 

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Patchwork of the Crosses

Our winter travels have taken us away from the beach and to the middle of Texas ranch country. We are in the middle of long horn cattle country surrounded by sprawling live oaks that stay green all year.

Out one window of our camper is a tree loaded with mistletoe.

Out another window we frequently see deer.

We have had two to three weeks of cold weather, and while we are thankfully not shoveling snow we have been inside for several days because of wet drizzly weather. I have been doing a lot of stitching. Patchwork of the Crosses has been a great small space project. I happened to have packed a small piece of batting and it is a nice work surface to hold the individual pieces in place while I am stitching. I do not get fussy cutting elements in every block, sometimes working on getting different colors and pattern variations in the mix of blocks. I have 22 blocks finished here are my most recent ones:

When the weather clears we try to get out for walks. There is a nearby lake and the other day we went there to go out on some of the hiking trails. We were given the following flyer at the park gate and my husband and I had a little nervous chuckle over it.

We cautiously proceeded with our walk and this is the only wild life we spotted that day.

That is not an alligator with it's mouth stretched open, just an Ibis wading in the shallows and it's reflection in the water.

Happy Stitching all!

 

 

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New Year, New Needle

Happy New Year!

As I was stitching on the last few berries of my rose fan blocks yesterday I realized my applique needle was so bent. I think I used the same needle for all four blocks and probably some buttons and other small mending items in between. Why? Needles are probably one of the least expensive notion we quilters buy. As I was drifting asleep last night after seeing the old year out it came to me: New Year, New Needles. My resolution for this year is already done. I am going to start the year right off with changing out all of my needles, in my EPP and applique projects and on the sewing machine.

 

The four rose fan blocks are finished and I love them. All of the berries are stuffed, a technique we learned in the Sue Garman class where these blocks were started. The berries on the vase picture show the stuffing a little better and the rest will poof out more when it is quilted.

I played around a little bit with lay out, vases in corners or in the center, but I really like the secondary berry design with the vases in the center. There will be a red sashing between the blocks and a red border and these blocks will become a Christmas tablecloth on my dining room table.

Ok, one last picture with a little distance, I can't help myself, I love the way these blocks turned out.

Happy New a Year!

 

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Tis the Season For

Christmas cookies for breakfast!

 

 

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Rainy Day Applique

I am sitting this morning with my cup of coffee popping out the plastic disks in about 60 berries. I thought my little work space looked so funny with all these trailing threads but it really works quite well. This tip was mentioned by Sue Garman in a recent class I was in: gather your stuffed berries with the applique thread and leave a 6 - 8 inch tail to applique them on. Simple, but a time saver. Several of my class mates had heard this before but it was new to me.

Yesterday was a rainy, drizzly, cool day and I assembled the little berries all day long. I gave them a good press last night put the ruler over them to add a little pressure and keep them in one place over night.

They will be glued on to the block for stitching as soon as I get all the plastic disks out.

Happy Stitching,

Cheri

 

 

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