Last Border of Auntie Green's Garden

I am working on the final border of Auntie Green's Garden (pattern by Irene Blanck). I did a lot of prep on laying out the borders so the bias stem vine would be pretty evenly divided and the leaves have all the edges already turned under so they are somewhat consistent in size. The four borders are all glued down so I just have to stitch, stitch, stitch. I am already thinking about how much I will miss working on this quilt.

I have also started the Stonefields quilt by Susan Smith.

I am doing this quilt with my friend, Julie (juliequilts1.blogspot.com) and we are using up all of our scrap fabrics and trying not to buy any fabrics for this quilt.

I sometimes cave however when I see a good fussy cutting fabric-we both love the beach-so I could not pass up this sand dollar fabric.

Because I have Auntie Green's as a large hand project (and Patchwork of the Crosses another ongoing hand stitching project) I choose to machine appliqué the blocks in Stonefields.

I can not believe how fast I am working through my scrap tone on tone fabrics for the backgrounds on this quilt.

I am also stuffing most of the small circles and berries just to give a little texture to these scrappy blocks.

It is an unusually cool July day with no humidity so I am going to gather up my appliqué things and get a little porch time stitching done.

Happy Stitching All,

Cheri

 

Posted with Blogsy

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.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Ladies Of The Sea -an update

I thought it would be fun to enter a quilt into a national show and guess what, Ladies Of The Sea was juried into the American Quilter's Society's Des Moine Iowa show. The show is this October 1-4. The entry process is a little intimidating to a national show but the American Quilter's Society website is wonderful and takes you through it step by step.

Ladies Of The Sea is a pattern by Sue Garman (comequilt.com) and part of the entry process is to obtain designer permission to show the quilt. I sent Sue an email and she very graciously sent me an immediate letter granting me permission to enter the quilt. She even posted these pictures on her June blog entry. (If you have not ever seen Sue Garman's blog - suegarman.blogspot.com - she posts once a month and it is just loaded with wonderful pictures and lots of explanations of her design process).

I almost missed my notification email as it arrived in my junk mail and I had deleted it. I really am happily surprised and honored to have it in the show and can not wait to see it hanging among all the beautiful quilts.

I have been working steadily on Auntie Green's Garden (pattern by Irene Blanck). The last braided border on the center took me forever. Once it was completed I did the bathtub plunge thing and washed all of the glue out of it.

I am happy to say it survived and now is so soft without all of that glue in it . I am now started on the next borders. This is the third background fabric, and it will be used for the final two borders.

My only other stitching I have accomplished this summer was this small blue work embroidery block going into a raffle quilt my small group is making.

Happy Stitching All,

Cheri

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

Auntie Green's Garden

The center is almost finished on Auntie Green's Garden. The braided bias border is the next step and I have just not had time to make bias lately.

The clemantis are blooming in my yard, they are my favorite summer flower. I bought this old buggy wheel hoping the vine would grow through the spokes. It is covered with buds so there should be a lot more flowers.

 

Happy Stitching,

Cheri

 

Posted with Blogsy

All Prepped, Ready To Sew

The flowers are back basted and the various berries and circle flowers are all ready for next section of Auntie Green's Garden.

The next Benjamen Biggs block is a paper cut block, one of my favorite album blocks to stitch. I sat right down and traced out the block and have it all prepped.

Here is another Patchwork Of The Crosses all cut out and ready to be glued onto the paper pieces and stitched.
But,

Spring has FINALLY arrived in Nebraska, my neighbor's cherry tree is all blooms. I have a new buggy wheel I picked up at an antique shop this winter to plant a new clemantis to grow on.

My other neighbor has a blooming crabapple tree.

And my deck flower pots are crying for geraniums and petunias and all the other goodies at the garden store. The day is warming up and I don't think much sewing is going to happen. But soon I will be in a lawn chair enjoying this glorious spring weekend probably with one of the above projects in hand.
Happy Spring,
Cheri

Posted with Blogsy

March Doings

I seem to be caught up on my block of the month projects...well somewhat caught up. Auntie Green's Garden is growing,

I have the second border sewn on and the next section of appliqué finished in the right upper hand corner. The colors are so soft and subtle, but very pretty fabrics on close up.

Benjamin Biggs block three is finished,

this month took me longer than I expected for what appears to be a simple block. I am sticking with the 16 inch blocks so far. I have been waffling about starting over and making making them smaller, but in the end decided to go with an alternate petal corner design that Gay showed on Sentimental Stitches. The petals go over the block seams so the blocks maybe can be trimmed down an inch or so but that decision will wait until more blocks are completed.

I also have two more Lucy Boston's Patchwork Of The Crosses blocks prepped and ready to stitch together.

This project is where the "somewhat caught up" comes in,

I am much better at cutting up my fabric and glueing on the paper pieces than actually stitching them together.

Happy Spring and Happy Stitchin all,

Cheri

 

Posted with Blogsy

Stitching & Snow

Like most if the rest of the country, Omaha is covered in snow and we have had some bitterly cold days. I can you scrub pants and 8 below zero do not go together. But, in the evenings and on my days off from working at the hospital, I have been getting much accomplished on my current projects. I just finished the first wreath of leaves on the center of Auntie Green's Garden.

I finished stitching the 1792 reproduction sampler by 10 year old Freelove Hazard. I love how she added her numbers (some of them, there is no 5) at the end of random lines of the verse or even down by her name. In true Freelove form I omitted the letter "D" on the first line, I just totally skipped it and did not realize it until I was several lines further. The letter "J" is also missing but that letter was not included in the alphabet samplers of that time. Freelove was stitched with DMC flosses on a white 25 count linen that I tea dyed to give an aged look.

I have my next Benjamin Biggs block all prepped and read to start stitching. I am going to save it for a quilt retreat in a couple weekends.

I have also committed to Lucy Boston's Patchwork of the Crosses. This is my 2nd block, again, prepped and ready to start putting together.

I have seen this bit of advise before but it always tickles me when I read it.

Happy Stitching All

Cheri-whose hair is a wreck, is in slippers, no makeup, and letting her husband make dinner...I am stitching : )

 

Posted with Blogsy

Auntie Green's Center Completed

I have been experimenting with making bias this morning. The next step on Auntie Green's Garden is a large leaf wreath around this basket of flowers. There is a lot of chunky 5/8 inch bias stem in this quilt that will need to be pieced together. In my experience seams do not go through my Clover bias makers neatly. I remember reading about Jeanne Sullivan's technique of double fold bias making in her book Simply Successful Appliqué (a great appliqué reference book) and thought I would do a test.

She brushes liquid sizing down the center of the bias and folds in half and irons.

So far so good. I trimmed the seam dog ears, brushed the sizing on my next fold and pressed in half again, making sure I folded over the raw edges.

Yea, smooth over the seam, I think this will work. I might draw some permanent pen lines on my well stained ironing mat and have some guidelines for the correct width of the stem since I am going to be making so much of it for this quilt.

I also finished my first block in the Benjamin Biggs wedding quilt.

It is a freezing cold morning in Omaha, 5 degrees below zero. I am going to retreat to the sewing room with lots of coffee and start making bias.

Happy Stitching All,

Cheri

 

Posted with Blogsy