What Next?

Now that my blog hop mini is done (see yesterday's post for links to all the fun creations!) I am looking forward to making progress on some of my other projects.  Do you want to see one of rejects for the blog hop mini quilt?  All of my quilts seem to lean toward the more traditional side so I was trying really hard to do something more modern but my attempt didn't quite do it for me.  Well, now I have a funky little 4 1/2" block that will probably go into some kind of orphan block quilt.

Here is something else that I am experimenting with!  Have you ever visited the website Spoonflower.com?  Amy at AmyScrapSpot told me about it.  She was all excited to start designing her own fabrics and ordered a bunch of swatches (pretty cheap to do that too!) with her designs.  You can design your own fabrics and offer them for sale if you desire.  I wish her great success with that but that's not for me.   I did think it would be fun to make a bag with my blog logo on it though.  So I ordered a swatch to see how it would come out.  Here it is:

The colors look great!  The fabric is kind of thin though so I might try it on a different kind of fabric.  What a great conversation starter that would be!

Quilting opens up all kinds conversations so easily doesn't it?  Friday, I was sewing like mad to get my mini quilts done in time for the blog hop so I took them with me to work on at while I was at my daughter's track meet.  Another track mom asked me what I was making and we spent the rest of the meet talking about quilting and all kinds of stuff.  Hi Donetta!!  It was nice to meet you!

 A little while ago I bought a few fabrics just to try and make my stash a bit more modern and my daughter fell in love with those fabrics so I'm working on a quilt for her.  Here are the fabrics I got:

Here is the pattern I will be using to make this quilt:

And here is the progress I have made so far.  

I hope I can figure out where I left off on the pattern!  Yikes!

Here's an interesting blast from the past.  Long ago when my oldest son was 6, Pokemon was all the rage so I bought some Pokemon fabric.  I never did make anything with it.  Now it's probably collectable!  this piece is from 1998.  I'll probably hang onto it just in case any grandsons come along.  I can't believe it, but Pokemon is still around!

I attended a concert of the Boise Philharmonic with my daughter and a few other ladies from work last night.  Those musicians are incredible!  And yes, you guessed it, I was sewing on binding during intermission.  I think I have a problem.   Sort of.  But not really.  :D

Kate,  my dear accountability partner, here is my list of projects that I need to be working on this month.  Keep me on track!

1.  Three Bee blocks to make for March

2.  I got mom's patchwork quilt sandwich basted and now I need to quilt it.

3.  Finish Meadowmist Mystery Quilt.  Here are the fabrics I picked and a few shots of blocks made along the way.  I still have to do the last months' clues and then sew all the blocks together.

So I've got my work cut out for me this month!

Linking to:
Love, Laugh, Quilt
Sharing Sundays

Jen & Jan's Mini Blog Hop Reveal Day 2

Hello fellow quilt lovers!

Welcome to day 2 of Jen and Jan's Mini Blog Hop QAL!

My talented friend Jen Rosin of A Dream and a Stitch designed the mini for this QAL and blog hop and the free pattern for it can be found here.

I have been having so much fun seeing everybody's mini quilts!  WOW!  Some really creative minds out there!

Well, let's get to it!  You've already seen my first mini, but here it is quilted and bound:

I just love these little birdies!

 And now . . .  presenting . . . Twilight Zone!  My friend Kate calls this spooky house.  She caught my vision!

As the last time, I had my share of troubles!   Even though the serpentine stitch is a basic one, I had never used it before.  THIS is what happens when you forget to change to the correct foot and don't raise your feed dogs!  I don't know why I kept going, it looked terrible!  Needless to say, I ripped all of that out.

Ah,  much better!

I really wanted to put a silhouette of someone sewing on their sewing machine in the window with the light still on but ran out of time to get that done.  As it is, you'll just have to imagine that is the reason the light is still on upstairs!  This mini doesn't have a whole lot of special sewing and I let the fabric do most of the work.  I had fun making "night" and "day" minis!  

I was sewing on these right up 'til the last minute and now I finally have time to visit everybody and leave comments!  Bloggers love those, you know!  Please be sure to let them know how much you enjoy their creations!

To thank you for visiting, I am giving away a free Craftsy class to be chosen randomly from all the comments on today's blog.  Winner will be chosen March 22.  Have fun making the rounds and thanks so much for stopping by!

Jen Rosin  A Dream and a Stitch
Kate Heads at Smiles From Kate
Jennifer Fulton at Inquiring Quilter
Karen Thurn at Tu-Na Quilts, Travels and Eats

Melva Nolan at Melva Loves Scraps
Vicki at Vicki's Crafts & Quilting
Julie Stocker at Pink Doxies
Anja Clyke at Anja Quilts
Diann at Little Penguin Quilts
Jayne at Twiggy & Opal
Susan Arnold at Quilt Fabrication
Leanne Milsom at Lizzie the Quilter
Sandra Walker at Mmm! Quilts!

March 11 Reveal Day

Janice Holton at Color Creating & Quilting

Sola at Alice Samuels Quilt Co

Jennifer Strauser at Dizzy Quilter

Amy Gerlich at Amy Scrap Spot

Sharon Denney Parcel at Yellow Cat Quilt Designs

Tami at Sew Much for Free Time

Suzy Webster at Adventurous Applique & Quilting

Tish Stemple at Tish's Adventures in Wonderland

Susan Gordon at Sevenoaks Street Quilts

Anne Boundy at Said With Love

Barbara Wootie at The Flashing Scissors
Jan Welander at Making Scraps

Mary Marcotte at Fleur de Lis Quilts

Linking to:

Crazy Mom Quilts

Busy Hands Quilts

Jen & Jan's Mini Blog Hop Reveal Day 1

Welcome to Jen & Jan's Mini Blog Hop!  At the end of my post is the list of all those who will be revealing their mini for today and tomorrow.  We have ten international participants!  2 from the UK, 3 from Australia, 2 from Canada, 1 from Germany, and 1 from Nigeria!  

In the states, we are representing Idaho, Oregon, Washington, California, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, Ohio, Minnesota, Michigan, Louisiana, Missouri, Tennessee, New Jersey, Michigan, Indiana, and Wisconsin. How we managed to have such a wide variety of states, I don't know! 
My blog partner in this adventure, Jen Rosin of A Dream and a Stitch designed a 16 inch mini quilt.  The free pattern called Quilter's Laundry Day can be downloaded from Craftsy here. 

My official reveal is happening tomorrow but to make it interesting, I recruited some friends of mine to make their own  versions.

You may remember  my BQF (Best Quilty Friend) Robin, whom I introduced here.   Robin and her mom, Audrey, and her sister Mindy all decided to participate!  Thanks ladies for joining in the fun!   Although most of the bloggers will probably have theirs quilted and bound, I told these ladies they could just make the block for now.  Without further ado here are their versions.

Audrey's version:  love the chocolatey brown house!

Mindy's version:  I like the way she quilted the windows!  And the fabrics are cute too.

Robin's version:  Adorable 4" quilt!  

Did you see what she did?  She made a separate quilt and hung it on a string with teeny tiny clothespins!  Depending on what mood you were in, you could have a whole selection of 4 inch quilts and hang the quilt of your choice on the line!  Clever lady!  I knew I could count on her to do something creative.

Now here is the list of bloggers who will be blogging about their mini today.  I hope you'll take the time to visit and comment on each of these fun ladies quilts and then come back on Saturday for Day 2's Reveals.    I will be giving a gift certificate for a free Craftsy class to a randomly selected visitor who comments on my blog post on Reveal Day and Jen will also be providing a prize.  I'm aware of several other bloggers who will be having a giveaway so please leave lots of comment love!

March 10 Reveal Day

Jen Rosin  A Dream and a Stitch
Kate Heads at Smiles From Kate
Jennifer Fulton at Inquiring Quilter
Karen Thurn at Tu-Na Quilts, Travels and Eats
Melva Nolan at Melva Loves Scraps
Vicki at Vicki's Crafts & Quilting
Julie Stocker at Pink Doxies
Anja Clyke at Anja Quilts
Diann at Little Penguin Quilts
Jayne at Twiggy & Opal
Susan Arnold at Quilt Fabrication
Leanne Milsom at Lizzie the Quilter
Sandra Walker at Mmm! Quilts!

March 11 Reveal Day

Janice Holton at Color Creating & Quilting

Sola at Alice Samuels Quilt Co

Jennifer Strauser at Dizzy Quilter

Amy Gerlich at Amy Scrap Spot

Sharon Denney Parcel at Yellow Cat Quilt Designs

Steffi at Steffi's Hobbys

Tami at Sew Much for Free Time

Suzy Webster at Adventurous Applique & Quilting

Tish Stemple at Tish's Adventures in Wonderland

Susan Gordon at Sevenoaks Street Quilts

Anne Boundy at Said With Love

Barbara Wootie at The Flashing Scissors
Jan Welander at Making Scraps

Linking to:

Crazy Mom Quilts

Needle & Thread Thursday

Life is Good!

I live in the best of both worlds.  I live at the end of a dead end road surrounded by corn fields on all sides, beautiful views all around and sooo peaceful.  At the same time, it is about a 2 minute drive to the grocery store and better yet to our tiny little town's LQS, Sleepy Hollow Quilt Shop.  What more could you ask for?

Today I was quilting along on my mini quilt for our blog hop that's happening next Friday and Saturday  and I needed a color of thread I don't have so hopped in the car and went and got it and was back within minutes.  My heart is so happy living here.

I am so excited about our blog hop!  We currently have a total of 30 people signed up and it isn't too late if anybody else wants to join in.  Time is running out though, our Reveal Days are March 10 & 11.  For more info, just click on the blog button at the top right of my blog.

I'll go ahead and show you what I've done so far on the mini you've already seen because I have another really fun one to show you on Reveal Day!    I quilted a loopy pattern in the sky but did it a little denser than I should have.  Don't know if I'll ever get this right.  I need to loosen up!  I did a cross hatch on the roof, straight lines on the house and stitched in the ditch on the log cabin quilt.

Not done yet, but I'll be doing soft wavy lines in green on the grass and cross hatching on the sidewalk and road.

On other projects,  Alex and Mina, (my nephew) are expecting a baby girl very soon and Mina told me she likes pink and black.  This will be the top, (thank you Sleepy Hollow!) it's all done in the that scrumptious minky fabric.  Mmm!  So soft!  Just need to get the back pieced together. quilt it, and hopefully get it done before the baby gets here.

I just realized next month is my one year anniversary for blogging!  Wow time goes by so fast!  I'm going to have to think of something fun to celebrate.

I subscribe to Country Living magazine and they had a GREAT issue this month that you color lovers would enjoy.

This part of the article shows different types of collections or collectables arranged by color including mini quilts!

So besides quilts, what kinds of things do you collect? 

Busy Hands Quilts

Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Fabric Frenzy Friday

Forced to Improvise

I have seen a lot of challenges to get UFO's (Unfinished Objects) finished this year and I like that idea.  The idea is to make a list of 12 projects and try to finish one each month.  So the UFO project for the month of February isn't really one of mine, but it is something I said I would do for my mom. My job is to quilt it!

 Here's my mama!  Doesn't she look young?  I bet you can't guess how old she is!  To be fair, this picture was taken three years ago but I bet you still can't guess!  

Someone gave her a bunch of scrap fabric and she hand cut them (no rotary) into squares and sewed them up into a little throw quilt.

Mom and I went shopping for some fabric to put on the back and asked for help in calculating how much fabric we would need to have enough backing.  It's a real cute calico with yellow background and pink and blue flowers.  It goes very nice with the pastel colors mom used on her quilt.

I've had the fabric and batting here for a while and decided this is the month I will finish.  So I began preparing the backing to put on and was exasperated to find out that the piece of backing we bought is not big enough!  Grrr.   So I knew I would need to figure out something to enlarge the back and cut the backing into two pieces so I could sew some additional fabric down the middle.  I don't know how in the world I managed it, but I sliced that back into four pieces!  Oh great!  Now what?  I had a bunch of calico charm squares that I had purchased a long time ago so I decided to do this:

I actually kind of like this!  So tonight, I got this all basted together and ready to quilt.  For the quilting, I am going to attempt to do a version of a feathered swirl that I saw Vicki from Vicki's Crafts and Quilting do on one of her quilts.

First step was to practice on paper.  Somehow, it just doesn't look like what I was envisioning.  I finally contacted Vicki (thanks so much for the guidance, Vicki!) and was hoping she could give me some pointers so we exchanged a few e-mails back and forth and I showed her what I was trying to do.  This was kind of the idea of the pattern I wanted to do but it wasn't right and I didn't know why.  Vicki suggested I make the beginning of the swirl more C shaped instead of the bullseye looking shape I was doing.

So here is my next attempt with less tight swirls and the designs are starting to fit together a little better; however, Vicki had one more piece of advice for me and that was not to leave the feather ends hanging out in space as shown where the arrows are.

So I tried one more time with to make the feathers actually connect to something.  I think I'm getting a little bit closer now to what I wanted to do.  Still needs some work though.  I'll practice a bit more.  It's not quite there.

Now, next step is to quilt this on a practice sandwich and make sure to make the designs LARGE.  I have a habit of quilting too densely and I want to practice leaving bigger spaces.  So that is my goal for tomorrow.

I am hoping to have a finish to show you this week!

P.S.  Don't forget about the Blog Hop sign up.  You can read about that here!  So far we have 19 quilters signed up!  We'd love to have you join in the fun!

Linking to:

Main Crush Monday

Moving it Forward

Show and Tell Monday With Bambi
Monday Making

Scraptastic Tuesday

Jen and Jan's Mini Blog Hop and Quilt Along

Last September Jen Rosin, from A Dream and a Stitch, and I hosted a Quilt Along Blog Hop to make a mini quilt.  You can see the gallery of quilts produced as a result of that blog hop here.  This was so much fun!

We have decided to make this event a regular thing and are calling it Jen and Jan's Mini Blog Hop QAL.  This go-round will be using a pattern that Jen has designed herself.  I'm so proud of her!  When she published it, it quickly became the most downloaded free pattern for the day on Craftsy!

This mini finishes at approximately 16 inches square depending on your own choices.  The "quilt" in the yard is a 4 inch block which you can personalize any way you see fit.  You can design your own or here is a great resource for finding free 4" blocks:  Free Quilt Block Patterns Library

We encourage you to personalize this mini in as many ways as you see fit through the quilting, using embroidery, applique, beads, buttons, etc. . . .or just sew up the block and let the fabric do all the work.  The possibilities are endless!

All blog hop participants will be entered in a drawing for either a free class from Craftsy or a $25 gift certificate from Fat Quarter Shop.

If you are interested in participating in this blog hop, just

1.  Leave a comment on this blog post and let me know!  Please include your name, name of your blog, blog URL, e-mail address and Instagram address (if you have one).  I'll send out the final list of all participants to everybody to add to their blog post shortly before Reveal Day.  

2.  Download the pattern here, and make the mini!  It goes together fast once you'e picked your fabrics!

3.  Prepare a blog post about it to be revealed on March 10. 

4.  Please add the button to your side bar.  The grabbable button and code is on my right hand sidebar at the top.

5.  If you use Instagram, be sure to share your mini at #jenandjansminiqal 

The pattern Jen wrote is very good and should be easy to follow; however, if you want more pictures to follow, she wrote a detailed tutorial with illustrations you can follow here.

Here is my first try at this pattern.  It's just a flimsy at this stage (I'll make another one for reveal day) but it gives you another version to see right now.  I just love the log cabin block and the little birds in the yard!

For all my quilting friends who don't have your own blog, I would LOVE to have you join in and make this little mini too.  I want to have a whole slew of versions to show on Reveal Day!  Please contact me if you are interested in making one.  It would totally make my day!

Linking to:

Crazy Mom Quilts

Busy Hands Quilts
Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Favorite Gift!

My daughter asked me what I wanted for my birthday and I told her a pretty sign for my sewing room.  So she made me this!   I LOVE IT!!  Thank you, Ashley! She has to have her cat in all her pictures whenever possible, apparently.  And I was very surprised she let me post a picture of her with her hair in disarray.  Keepin' it real!

If you are disappointed at  not seeing any quilts, you can read about my first 2017 finish, my first BIG finish, and my 6th finish ever!  Right here.  Ashley is also my faithful quilt holder.  

Linking to:

Main Crush Mondays at Cooking up Quilts

My FIRST BIG FINISH!

I am so so sooooo excited to share this finish! I thought I would NEVER be done!  It's the very first large quilt I've pieced and quilted myself on my home sewing machine, a Bernina 440QE.  It measures 86x64.  I finished the binding this morning!  I wish I had a better place to photograph, but the weather right now is not going to permit that.  

I was asked to make this quilt for a grandbaby that was coming.  Needless to say, that baby got here before I finished.  I had no idea how long this was going to take!  The grandmother asked me to make it bigger than baby size so it could be used for many years to come.   The inspiration for the colors came from the baby room.  I finished the piecing in time to share at the baby shower and I think the mom was very pleased!

I visited fabric.com to select fabrics because I like their design wall feature that lets you select thumbnails of the fabric you want to use and put them all together on one page to see how they work together.  I ended up selecting a variety of Kaffe Fasset and Amy Butler fabrics for the hearts and a wild Kaffe Fasset Jungle Green for the back.  The backing wasn't quite large enough so I made an extra chevron strip using heart scraps.

I feel like having a party I'm so excited about this!  Woo hoo!!

Linking to:

Finish it Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts

Finished or Not Friday at Busy Hands Quilts

Sew Off Saturday at Sew Can She

Monday Making at Love, Laugh, Quilt
Free Motion Mavericks