Pink Squirrel -

Saw another Squirrel - this time a Pink one - so I pulled some fabric from my stash and played with them a little. Here's a sneak peek of what I have so far - ;))

I know that I should be a good girl and follow through with my previous plan(s) - but Squirrels are so much fun and I have no deadline(s) - so why not PLAY with whatever I want to play with - whenever I want to play with it? - ;))



Talk to you later - gotta go - gotta sew -

Design Wall Monday - 6/27/16

On my wall today - a Halloween panel -
Hallows Eve - #5028 - 100% Cotton - by Kelly Panacci - for Northcott -
according to the information on the selvedge - ;))

Yeah - I know it's a Halloween panel - but I've been working on some Christmas and Thanksgiving stuff and Halloween is coming up before both of them so it might as well get added to the pile. Besides - it's a cute panel for FMQ practice - after I do some "stitch-in-the-ditch" between the sections - to define the "blocks" - and for extra stability - ;))

I was going to get fancy and use some of the Halloween fat quarters in my stash to make a "creative" back but decided against it. Why waste perfectly good fat quarters when I can use a single piece of black fabric that you won't see anyway? Most of the stitching will be in black thread - so a black backing makes sense to me - and I found a piece in my stash that has that fade line down the center - you know what I mean - so it would be nice to USE it and get it out of my stash. And it might be fun to see how other colors will look on the back. I liked how the orange thread showed up on the back of my little Halloween "twister" piece. (I found the link to that post - HERE - but I don't know what Mr. Google did with the photos - UGH!!)

Anyway - since I was going to be using my walking foot and black thread - I thought that I would play with the Amish Pillow Top and try to turn it into a table runner. I cut a backing from another piece of solid black fabric and I cut a couple of solid color strips to add to the sides "quilt-as-you-go" style. The center part will have the extra layer of batting - but maybe I can make it look like "trapunto" - or I might just add some additional batting to both sides - don't know yet. The extra border strips will give me more areas to practice some FMQ "sashing/border" designs - ;))

I also cut the backing for the June Wedding Sudoku Quilt - nothing fancy - just another piece of fabric that I had in my stash that I wanted to be GONE - ;))

And I actually hand quilted a couple of lines on the Watercolor Heart Quilt - and I surprised myself - I can still do it!! My stitch count per inch isn't what it used to be - and I had to change my technique a little but I got them even and straight - and that's all that matters - ;))

These little projects helped keep me busy yesterday so that I didn't get all mopey and feeling sorry for myself on the second anniversary of the day that My Guy Stopped Loving Me. One of my friends who also lost her husband told me that the first year is hard but the second year is harder because then it's real. I think she nailed it. I also think that he'd be laughing at me trying to learn how to Free-Motion quilt. He always thought it was funny that I would take perfectly good fabric - cut it up - and then sew it back together - until I reminded him that a carpenter does the same thing with pieces of wood - and no one thinks that's the least bit strange - ;))

The Fourth of July is coming up next week so I should/could dig out my July Americana Sudoku Quilt and work on that a little. I think that it's all "cut and kitted" - and a little "piecing" might be a nice break from all of the "quilting" that I have planned for the next few weeks. And by the time I finish all of the "cheater" practice pieces - I might have enough confidence to quilt the Sudoku Quilts - and then work my way up to the bigger ones on the list - ;))

Sounds good in theory - ;))



Talk to you later - gotta go - gotta sew -

Decisions - decisions -

One down-side to sorting stuff is all of the decisions that you have to make as you go along "sorting" stuff - ;))

I took another look at my list and re-arranged a few things - and I think that I'll make the backings for some of the wholecloth/cheater pieces and move them closer to the top of the pile of those "to be quilted". "Cheater" pieces are PERFECT for Free-Motion practice - no pesky seams in the way - and I can use thread that "blends in" - since all I'm going for is "texture" and "practice" - ;))

And I also realized that I have two quilts that have been partially hand quilted. One is a sampler quilt which was pieced entirely by hand - yeah, I know - I did that just so I could say I did - ;))

The other one is machine pieced and a "heart" version of another watercolor quilt that I did a few years back -

Looks like I'll have to find some time to brush up on my hand quilting skills, too - unless I can come up with some way to finish them by machine without them looking too wonky - ;))



Talk to you later - gotta go - gotta sew -

Taking inventory -

No photos today - but I DID "take inventory" of my UFOs/Projects/Squirrels to see what was what and which ones were in each "stage" of completion - and then I reorganized my list on the page/tab at the top of my blog - ;))

I knew that I had quite a few things "in progress" - but goodness gracious - I had forgotten just how MANY things are on that list - ;))

Oh, well - all the more to use for practice - right? - ;))

I tried to sort them in some semblance of order and to group them so that I can try to tackle them in "batches" - so we'll see how that goes - ;))



Talk to you later - gotta go - gotta sew -

Bound -

Took me a bit longer than expected - but both the Christmas embroidered block table runner (3x1) and table topper (3x3) are finally bound -

Tah Dah!! - ;))

And a couple of close-ups - ;))

The backing on the table runner is the red - but I barely had enough red left to bind them both - so I backed the table topper with the lighter holly print - ;))

They still need labels but I might be lazy and let SuzieQ do her thing with her cool little alphabet font - haven't decided yet - ;))

I do like the Susie's Magic Binding method that I mentioned in previous posts - little flange detail and sewn TOTALLY by machine - which is a HUGE plus since hand work is getting more difficult for me as time goes by - ;))

Tomorrow I'm going to take "inventory" and see what's what - and see where that takes me - so stay tuned - ;))



Talk to you later - gotta go - gotta sew -

A bit of binding -

Why is it that whatever I want to do usually takes MUCH longer to do than I think it will? Does that ever happen to you - totally underestimate the time it takes to do something? - ;))

All I wanted to do today was trim both the Christmas embroidered block table runner (3x1) and table topper (3x3) - make the binding - and then bind them. That's it - nothing HUGE - and I did get them trimmed and I made the binding - but that's as far as I got - tomorrow will have to be "binding" day - ;))

And I have a new PLAN - ;))

Instead of having a bunch of tops that need quilting and then trying to figure out "what" to quilt in each section - I'm going to try to REVERSE it. I think that I'm going to try to get the backs made - layer/baste the tops - then when I find a design that I want to "play with" - I'll have the "what" - and then I can decide which top I want to use and "where" I want to quilt it.

Sounds good in theory, huh? - ;))

On that note - Lori Kennedy - The Inbox Jaunt - HERE - has some terrific tutorials and a bunch of designs that I want to try. She has said - HERE -

For the next few weeks we are going to concentrate on quilting square blocks.

That sounds perfect for my Sudoku quilts -

Now I need to get them ready to play - ;))



Talk to you later - gotta go - gotta sew -

A little bit of quilting going on -

I'm having so much fun "quilting" that I almost forgot to blog - ;))

The yellow sashes between the blocks and the rows on my practice piece from the Craftsy class - Free-Motion Quilting Essentials with Christina Cameli are done. I tried to quilt a different design in each sash section. I still have the borders to do - but I plan to use them for practice areas for her "Secrets" and "Wild" classes - when I get there - ;))

I also got the grid cross-hatch quilting done on the Christmas embroidered block table topper - 3 x 3. I used my walking foot for that -

And then added some Free-Motion "scribbles" in the background of the embroidered blocks - ;))

Then I trimmed and bound the Blue/Yellow placemat -

It's not perfect -

But it's quilted - ;))

I'm trying to practice my Free-Motion quilting a little each day and find it a bit disruptive to have to take time out to either make a backing and then layer/baste it - or trim up a piece - or make some binding and then attach it -

It's waaaaay more fun to FMQ - so I might have to switch to "batch mode" - ;))

In the past - the largest "batch" was always the one of quilt tops that need backing and quilting -

Something tells me that's about to change to the one of quilted quilts that need trimming and binding - ;))



Talk to you later - gotta go - gotta sew -

Sew - Rip - Repeat -

I told myself that I would use the the blue placemats for "practice" pieces and that I wouldn't get too stressed at the lack of finesse in my attempts at FMQ - and that I would stitch them up and then leave them "as is" and not rip anything out -

Well - I lied - ;))

I found a really cool stencil by JD Stencils in my stash -

And after numerous attempts to get the tension right and to fix skipped stitches -

Sew - Rip - Repeat -

Seemed to be the order of the day - ;))

When everything seemed to be adjusted properly -

I marked and stitched a couple of placemats -

And while this part didn't look too bad -

This is simply awful - and a sorry excuse for a "heart" -

I KNOW that I can do better than that!! -

So I will continue with the "Ripping" part and try again tomorrow - ;))



Talk to you later - gotta go - gotta sew -

No quilting today -

Nope - no quilting today -

Just browsing some blogs -

And checking out some other classes available on Craftsy - ;))

After dinner I plan to watch/re-watch some of the ones that I have -

While I contemplate what to stitch in the fat bottom sections of the blue placemats - maybe a biggy free-form feather - what do you think? I have eight of them so that would give me a bunch of practice -and I LOVE stitching feathers - even if they don't really LOOK like feathers - YET -

And while I stitch those - I'll be thinking about what I want to stitch in my Turkey Day "feathers" - maybe something "loopy" in the top parts - and a spiral something in the bottom sections -

Oh - the possibilities!! - ;))

This Free-Motion Quilting stuff is addictive!! - ;))



Talk to you later - gotta go - gotta sew -

Playing -

I've been playing with this placemat for a long time -

It was left over from a top that I made out of some other placemats - and it kept getting put on the bottom of the pile to be quilted - until now -

I went back to my old Picasa Web Albums and can't find the photos of the "placemat quilt" - and I tried to check some old blog posts and the photos on those are gone, too - so who knows what Mr. Google did with them. Anyone else have that problem - or is it just me? No, BOB - it's just you - ;))

Anyway - on a totally different subject - with some help from a bloggy buddy - I added a new feature at the top left of my blog - "Follow by Email" - after I got an email from a reader asking how she could "sign up for my blog" - I hope that's what she meant - ;))



Talk to you later - gotta go - gotta sew -