Laugh at Yourself

That's what I'm doing today! 

I am teaching myself to do inset seams today, also known as Y-seams for those of you who don't sew.  I thought instead of doing one of THESE gorgeous creations (which, of course, is the ultimate goal eventually),

 I will give myself a break and start by making just an 8 point star pillow with just one diamond per star point instead of jillions of tiny diamonds like this one above.  This pretty picture came up when I did a google search for Lone Star and I love it.   It happens to be a kit on sale at Bluprint called Glowing Lone Star and you can find it here.  (no affiliation)

The first thing I did was search for a class I could watch on making a Lone Star quilt.  The class I found is called  Luminous Lone Star.  The neat thing about this is it starts out with a very simple pillow project, then goes to a Lone Star with four fabrics in it and the one with six fabrics in it so you can get as complex as you wish.  I'll stick with the pillow for now.

I was pretty happy with the star part of the pillow although the middle points don't match as perfectly as I would like.   But this time around, they're close enough.   I'm persevering on!

Following the instructions, I did my first inset seam by sewing a square into the corner between two legs of stars and it worked great!  I was pretty proud of myself and quickly sewed 2 and 3.   I got ahead of myself and wasn't paying attention . . . and this is the part where I'm laughing at myself.  Sheesh! 

Here's how it looks after ripping out that little detour, sewing it correctly and adding borders.  And yes, that is Morgan's quilt in the background, spray basted, rolled up and ready to be quilted.  

Quite a few lessons learned on this project!

1.  Don't make a pillow cover if you don't have the right size pillow form ready to stuff into it.  You'll be disappointed you can't view your completely finished project!  Ask me how I know.  😞

2.  Make sure to choose a fabric with a lot of contrast with the background.  I chose a print with a white background that kind of blends into the white tone on tone I chose for the pillow background.  I lost my star points.  Good to know before I make a full size quilt!

3.  Do follow directions when it comes to WHEN you should backstitch.  I am so used to not back stitching most of the time that I forgot to do it at those places where it is important.  This pillow may or may not hold together.  We shall see!

4.  Trying something new is FUN!   If I practice the concept on a small project like a pillow and things don't work out as well as I hoped, it's not a great loss of time and effort.  This pillow although FAR from perfect is still going to get used because it matches the Vicki/Jen/Janice quilt in my living room.

5.  Learning Y-seams was not as hard as I thought and it makes me want to try curved seams now!  I've let them intimidate me for too long.

And this is my DrEAMi (linking with Mmm! Quilts!) project for the week because when this day began, making a pillow was the FARTHEST thing from my mind.    I'm supposed to be quilting Morgan's quilt this month and keep finding ways to procastrinate.   Hey, at least it's basted!  

What are you procrastinating this week?  😏  

Linking to:

Busy Hands Quilts

Brag About Your Beauties

Can I Get a Whoop Whoop?

It Was a Magic Moon . . .

on that blue and violet mysterious night.

The moon gazed down at the majestic moose grazing in the shallows.

The night was so still, music could be heard coming from the cozy, firelit cabin across the lake.

It was one of those mystical nights where imagination takes flight and whisks you away to just about anywhere you want to be.  And the magic is enhanced when those Northern Lights appear!

OK, so I"m getting a little bit carried away with the flights of fancy but I am beyond thrilled about what is taking shape here.  THIS is a panel that I bought a while ago with a different project in mind which never happened.   So it has been languishing in my stash.  Until . . . I noticed that the colors matched my son, Morgan's quilt perfectly!   So this panel . . .

with this magical scene that looks straight out of Alaska is going on the back of his quilt and the fabric I showed above really is called Northern Lights looks as if it was MEANT to go with this panel.  I bought the panel at Sleepy Hollow Quilt Shop here in Idaho (it's called Moose Creek Lake by Pippa Moon for studiofabrics.com) and the Northern Lights fabric by Liz Goodrick-Dillon was purchased from Mystic Sunset Fabrics on Etsy.  Even the name of the store fit in with the whole magical twilight scene we've got going on here.  I am not affiliated with any of these, I just like to give credit where credit is due!  And sometimes when I am reading a blog and I'd like to know where they got their fabric, they don't say!  So just in case anybody likes Alaskan scenes, there ya go.

I'm not sure why, but it took me FOREVER to get going on this but I finally got the back pieced . . .

And hopefully tomorrow I can start basting it to this . . . My son loves blue in case you didn't guess.

Oh!  Almost forgot.  This Saturday will be our third monthly meeting of the Owyhee Mountain Quilters!  I'm so looking forward to that!  I'll try to remember to take pictures this time.

So that's my latest progress.  What are you working on this weekend?  

Linking to:

Busy Hands Quilts

Confessions of a Fabric Addict

From Bolt to Beauty

Powered by Quilting
Peacock Party

New Quilt Rack! And a finish! (sort of)

I have been told I have a talented hubby.  And I agree!  His daytime job is building houses which he excells at; however, lately he has turned his attentions after work toward creating things out of wood besides houses.  Most recently a quilt rack.  LUCKY ME!  Is this gorgeous or what?  I love it!  Haven't decided what to put on top of it yet (if anything).

He says he has the parts for four more quilt racks cut out so I think I'm going to get one of these in my bedroom too.  I'm going to have him paint that one white or cream and see how I like it.  I have a love/hate relationship with the cupboard you see in this picture to the left of my quilt rack.   Here's a better view of it.

It's no heirloom but rather a veneer that can't be restained.  I bought it when the kids were little and it holds all our DVD's and Videos.  I'm kind of tired of it.  I am seriously considering painting it.  What would you do?

I FINALLY sat down and finished putting the binding on THIS quilt!

I bought this quilt before I had any finishes of my own.  When Vicki at Vicki's Crafts and Quilting showed this on her blog last year I fell in love with it.  I asked her if she had any plans for it and she didn't so she sold it to me.  Then about that same time, Jennifer of Dizzy Quilter was just starting her own longarm quilting business so put out an offer to the first 10 people to respond to quilt a quilt for $50.  How could I pass that up!  So I sent it to her.  She did a fantastic job and I love it.  So I've had it waiting to have binding for about a year.  What took me so long???  So glad I finally got it done.  It's draped on a chair in my living room.  The chair looks so drab now in comparison to this bright and happy quilt.  This picture shows the back and binding.

If you would have told me a week ago that I would be making scrunchies I would have laughed at you.  But guess what I'm doing?  MAKING SCRUNCHIES!   My daughter and her roommate Dana are both going on separate mission trips this summer that they are trying to raise funds for and this is something they decided to try.  It was just a random idea so they made up a few and Dana's sister advertised them on her instagram account and sold every single one they made plus got orders for more!   I guess scrunchies are a "thing" right now.  It's a GREAT way to use up old stash!  Now to figure out what colors and styles girls these days like the best.  I'll be sure to report!

Something fun happened to me this week!  I'm sure many of you may know Valerie Reynolds from Val's Quilting blog.  She lives right across the state border from me.  I'm in Idaho and she is in Oregon.  She told me she wants to come to our next meeting of Owyhee Mountain Quilters!  How fun is that!  It's kind of a long drive for her but she wants to come!  I'm so excited!  Better yet, coincidentally, one of the projects our group is going to work on as we have time is making a quilt for the Carolina Hurricane Quilt Project and Val told me she is a volunteer quilter for that group!  So not only can we make a quilt top, but Val has already volunteered to quilt them so we won't have to waste money on postage getting them to a quilter.  We will be making the blocks that will make this quilt:

So far, I have made four of them!  They are so EASY!  I would be delighted if any of my fellow quilter friends out there in Idaho/Oregon land would consider making a few blocks for this project.  As few or as many as you like!

 We will be collecting these for several months and when we get enough we'll make them up into a bed sized quilt or two depending on how many we gather.   Over 4500 families lost their homes and even more than that sustained major damage.   If you would like to be involved, you can just make a few blocks or even make an entire quilt if you wish. It does not have to be this pattern.  This is just an easy one we will be making.  But nobody is limited to only doing this block.  If you are interested in making this block, you can find the instructions here.

 If you want to make an entire quilt of some other design to donate, that would be wonderful as well!

OK, I've rambled on enough for one post.  Have a wonderful rest of your weekend!

Linking to:
Busy Hands Quilts
From Bolt to Beauty
Powered by Quilting
Confessions of a Fabric Addict
Quilting is More Fun Than Housework

Scared to Do This

I am going on an adventure!  But I'm kinda nervous about it too.  I have signed up for the Sarah Fielke Block of the Month.  Sarah Fielke is a quilt designer from Australia.  I just love this quilt!  But the scary part for me is the applique on it.   The quilt is called Coming Home.   Here is the basic layout of what we will be making.  We choose our own colors.  And we work at our own pace.  There is no pressure to "keep up" although I'm sure I'll be putting that pressure on myself just because I LIKE to keep up if I can.    Isn't this spectacular? This is just the line drawing with no color.

Following are some colored renderings from the Facebook group for this block of the month event.  There are almost 500 members from around the world who are planning on making this quilt or at least who have bought the pattern.   I'll share a few of them here.  I have asked each lady permission to share her version.  You can follow along on what's happening with this block of the month quilt on Instagram as well at #sarahfielkebom2019 or #cominghomebom and I'll blog about my progress on occasion as well.  

This beauty was created by Julie Kowalski Vaughan from the UK

This one was created by Ivete Tecador of Gotham Quilts in New York City

This version is from Linda Eagleton from Australia.

This one with red background colors is a fun one from Vicki Platts from Australia

Beautiful rainbow version from Joanna Martinez from New Zealand 

Created by Mandy Dunne from Australia

And last but not least, this one with a striking dark background.  

The artist said there was no need to include her name.

Aren't these fun?

I know which one is my favorite, which one is yours?

So that is my big upcoming adventure and in the meantime I have a few small finishes to report.  The first one is a leader ender project using 1 1/2" squares (they finish at 1 inch).  No I wouldn't purposely CUT squares this tiny, are you crazy???  But they came already cut this size when I joined a Keepsake Quilting Club years ago.  It was a collection of swatches.  I hated to just throw them out!  That's 320 different fabrics right there.

It was perfect because the leader ender pile was pretty small and doesn't take up a whole lot of space.  Yes, it did take forever, but here is the end result!  It's going to be a changing pad for my grand daughters and it is soft and cuddly with a flannel backing.  Oh by the way, my son and his wife just found out that baby number three is a GIRL!  Mom and dad were hoping for a boy to even things out for dad a bit but she'll get loved just like the others.  Kind of handy to already have the wardrobe ready to go.  :)

Here is mom with her Christmas quilt that my sister sewed and I quilted and bound.

and on her bed

I have a bunch of other things to talk about but this post is getting long so I'll save that for another day!  I've been reading from a lot of my blogging friends that this is the year of finishing UFO's!  (unfinished objects)  and I am so on board with that.  I'm sure there will be some distracting things that will tempt me but for the most part, I want to finish up things that I've started in the past and kind of abandoned.  Wish me luck!

Linking to:

Free Motion by the River

Main Crush Monday

Monday Making

Stitch All the Things

Clever Chameleon

Sew Fresh Quilts

The Quilt I Made with a Giveaway I Won

I have been a VERY lucky girl these past few years and won quite a few giveaways.  I have decided that from now on,  whenever I win something from a site, I will make it a point to make something as soon as I can with my winnings and if extra fabric is needed, I'll buy it from that site.  I appreciate the generosity of those who have them and it's my way to say thank you!  PLUS it gives me something to blog about (grin).

Last June,  Paige Alexander at Quilted Blooms was asked by Bernie at Needle & Foot Fine Fabrics to curate a FQ bundle using fabrics in her store and also allowed her to run a giveaway for one bundle.  I was the lucky winner or Paige's bundle!  So I have been chomping at the bit for 6 months to make something with this fabric.  Christmas break was the perfect time!  Here are the 5 fat quarters that I won:

• Dots in Yellow from Paint the Town by Striped Bear Studio (printed on GOTS certified cotton)
• Dash in Pink from Dreamer by Carrie Bloomston 
• Raindrops from Paint the Town by Striped Bear Studio (printed on GOTS certified cotton)
• Grid Paper in Green from Wordplay by Sarah Fielke 
• Frolic from Meriwether by Amy Gibson

I searched for a while and found a pattern online that was perfect for using up 5 fat quarters.  The pattern I chose to use is Garden Path by Amanda Niederhauser.  Here is her version . . .

Since I decided to use the Raindrops for the background fabric, I ended up buying a little extra of that and then choosing another fabric for the 5th fat quarter and also the border.  

Here is what I chose for the 5th FQ . . . 

Here is what I chose for the border:

And here is my finished top!  It went together very quickly!  So fun to make.  I didn't add in the 1 1/2" background strip around the blocks before the border like Amanda did so it's a bit smaller than hers.   It measures 48 1/2" square.  

I'll be using the plum fabric for the backing and also the binding.  I sure do love that floral fabric.  Kind of wish I had bought some more of it. This was a fun bit of summer brightness right in the middle of winter.  

Now I need to decide how to quilt it.  Would love to hear suggestions!  What would you do?  Oh, and also what color thread would you use?  I love hearing all of your ideas and am so appreciative when you share them with me.   I'm all ears!

Linking to:

Love, Laugh, Quilt

Em's Scrapbag
Stitch All the Things
Free Motion by the River
Show & Tell Monday
My Quilt Infatuation