Saturday 30 January 2016

I am Blue too ;^)

So much Blue all over Blogland, so many wonderful, gorgeous, inspiring projects to see everywhere ... ahh! I love looking at everyone's work but I'll take a break from that long enough to show you what I have done this week. (which was not much.)

I didn't get to finish my UFO's for January. :^(  There is still too much quilting left to do for it to be finished  before the 31st so I have to accept that it is not eligible for OMG. I will work on it more in February.

I did the 365 Challenge blocks and I am now up to date.
So many little beauties in there ...

inspirations for Rainbow Scrap Challenge gallore ...

this one is called Year's Favorite and I ♥love♥ it. I am thinking of making it my second RSC2016 pattern (if only I could finish that UFO!!)  only bigger as this one finishes at 3 inches.
- Chantal, it is still a pinwheel pattern.
- Oh! My! Look at that lol.  Well, it is just a thought  ... for the moment. :^D

I saw some very nice blog posts (as always) with so much inspiration this week.

My friend, Dasha, at Patching Pixies, made a cute little zippy pouch and I did too.

I don't have a lot of experience sewing zippers so I am very happy with this little projects and more will join it. You can find the pattern at The Renegade Seamstress.  Thanks Dasha for sharing. ♥

Then, Lisa, at Sunlignt in Winter Quilts,  shared with us her beautiful fabric baskets. Well, I fell in love with those too, lol and HAD to make one ... or two ...

Since I pulled this fabric out for my RSC2016 but not using it, I thought I'd use it for my first basket. I didn't have the required fusible fleece and used interfacing instead. It is not as nicely stiff as it should be but it's good enough. Then I made one for my dear sweet friend 'Pink'.

It has already been delivered and she is in love with it. Then I looked at my M&M's fabric and ... hey, why not??

I won't use much of the big guys in my RSC2016 blocks (as they call too much attention) so might as well put them to good use somewhere. Isn't this one cute?  Front and ...
well, it could be the front too lol. It's an one-hour pattern that REALLY takes only one hour. You can find the pattern on Craftsy for free, right here.  Thanks Lisa for sharing. ♥

If you don't know these ladies, click on their respective links to discover two very talented, sweet girls.  Say Hello to them for me please. Enjoy!

And then ... my boy caught the flu and passed it around but I won't bore you with that.

Today, I hope to machine quilt AT LEAST five blocks on my UFO. My neck might allow me that many. There is a lot of turning and sometimes my neck muscles have enough of the exertion before I do.

Well, there's more than I thought there was.  :^)

Linking up with Angela for RSC2016 at Soscrappy.  Okay, so got to go as I still have many blogs I haven't read yet.

Until next time ...

;^)










Monday 18 January 2016

Monday Making - 36 done





My leader / ender project.  



36 blocks done, 6 more to go.



Sashing? Wondering, pondering, testing... 




Until next time ....


;^)

Joining Beth for Monday Making

Joining Judy for Patchwork Time

Sunday 17 January 2016

Time to relax and slow stitch

Sunday is the day I catch my breath, put my feet up and relax a bit. (Just a bit.)

I have plenty of projects to hand sew but, as I am a very good addict quilter, I deemed that one more project wouldn't break my back lol.

My "resolution" to use my older fabric lead me to the Country Road.

Lori from Humble Quilts had a cute little quilt-along in fall of 2015. I finished mine, or so I thought. Since I still have too much of the golden/ocher fabric to put it in the scrap bins, I decided to add borders.

It looks wonky because it is wonky. I forgot that the golden fabric doesn't like steam. When I pressed the borders I used steam and ...

made an ugly mess!  Last night, I thought is wasn't that bad but looking at the pictures this morning ...


it is truly a wake-up call. This will not do. Unacceptable! I think I have enough still to redo the outer border. Unfortunately, last night I really wanted to start working on this one so I marked a Baptist Fan design all over and quilted for a bit.  ADHD people are soooo impulsive!

Do you think I can rip the border without outdoing the quilting? More importantly,  can I sew new  borders on with the quilt still pinned?

(Don't know why this picture is so washed out.)  Well, I am about to find out because I am doing this.   







Worst case scenario is I'll have to undo all the quilting. Awwwwhhh!! 
Since DH is cooking lunch, I can do this now and continue my slow stitching later this afternoon or this evening with Mary, Edith, Daisy, Mr. Carson and everyone else on Downton Abbey. My kind of evening. Yeah!


Until next time...

;^)

Joining Kathy for a Slow Sunday Stitching. I hope you do too.










Saturday 16 January 2016

It's Saturday Blues

Have I played the blues this week ? Yes I did! Do you want to see?



A blue shoofly  and a very dotty Ohio Star variation for fmq practice. They will probably end up as mug rugs.


some 4 patch ... for someday. As I was making these, a project popped into my mind. I might use these up faster than I thought I would.



And a very funny thing happened in my sewing room.
Last week, Gayle at Mangofeet mentioned on her blog a new challenge that she wanted to participate in. It's called 365 Challenge - The ultimate sampler. Gayle showed a picture of the quilt and I just fell off my chair. The quilt is sooooo gorgeous! And it's BLUE! Oh! I am sooo in love! But I said I would NOT start any new project so I continued to read her post and tried to put that (AWWWEEESOOOME) quilt out of my mind.

The very next morning, I found these by my sewing machine.



What ? How ? It can't be! I did NOT start a new project.


Oh! YEESSS I DIIIDD!  It's so gorgeous, I am sure you can understand!!  Have a look for yourself if you haven't already seen  this challenge.

Just tiny little 3.5 inches blocks to do.Only one per day.They are fun. They are cute. They are addictive! I am fully aware that I won't be able to keep up with this challenge all year. I will get behind. As long as I keep downloading the patterns, all will be good. The patterns will stay up on the site for 3 months. So when April starts, January's blocks will disappear. I am sure I can download faster than that. And besides, I am using left over fabric from Shakespeare in the Park so it is a free quilt  ... so far anyway.

Oh! also did three more of my leader/ender project.

Not in love with the one on the left but not about to change it. Did enough reverse sewing for a long time... I hope!!


We finally have a little bit of snow, every morning this week. Just an inch or two.  It makes the landscape so much prettier. (It's not that dark in real life.)



Joining Angela for RSC2016
Hope to see you there.

Until next time ...

;^)







Wednesday 13 January 2016

A Different Wind - RSC2015

These blocks are the very first ones I did in January for my RSC2015 as the colour of the month was blue. Look at them very carefully because they are sneaky little rascals. 

See the blue/green one at the bottom right? It's the one I talked about in my last post. In the picture below, it is also at the bottom right.


I had to fix that one because the pinwheels were not turning in the right direction compared to the others.  Weeelllll ... 

 

this other blue one is wrong too!! Arrgghhh! More unstitching.




It was not playing any nicer with the blocks at the other edge. It took longer to fix this one as it was in the middle of the last quarter. So out of my first three blocks, only one was done right.

Or maybe only one was done wrong and I manage to make all the following blocks wrong. (??)   

Nevertheless, if you think of making this block, take heed of the wind's direction. It could save you a storm of ripping later on lol. 


Then came the border with 160 HSTs to audition ; only 72 will be chosen. 
Will I do a mix-match of colours as the top border or follow some sort of rainbow as the bottom one ? If so, where do I put the browns?  And what of the corners ? 

 HSTs ? 



Pinwheels ?  Which colour ?
Many days were spend just moving HSTs around. 


Eventually, I ended up with this beauty. 


On Monday, I hurried and took a few pictures before the sun set. (We finally had some sun after a weekend of rain. The snow froze solid over the night. My boots barely made imprints.)
(Now looking at the photos, I can see another blooper. Lol, I am the queen of bloopers. Check the middle coloured diamond in the bottom row of the second picture. Its upper left section is white. LOL!! It's the blue/green one I'd fixed today and obviously sew it upside down. Bet the wind has turned yet again lol.)

Anywho!! This quilt is now done and waiting its turn to be quilted.
You know I had to fix the blooper right away. Then I took more pictures.  The (same) culprit block is in the middle of this picture. I think it likes the attention lol.

A few weeks ago, while I made the binding for "Kitchen Party", I also made the binding for this quilt. Then as I was cutting it, I realized I was following the blue band!  No, not what I wanted. I wanted the stripes the other way so we could see all of the rainbow.  Arrgghh!! again!!



Do I have enough of this fabric to cut another binding out of it ? After looking at it for awhile, I am not sure I like this binding for this top anymore. I'll leave it until I quilted the top and then I'll see if it will be used or not. 

Pictures of the final border with the brown. 
Brown in between the greens. 

 On the other border, Brown after the greens. 




(Picture with all bloopers fixed.)  I love how the border makes a white rick rack effect around the quilt.  It measures 72 X 58 inches. 

I named thy "Hidden Gems" as one can see the beautiful diamonds only when they gather.




That's all, folks!

Until next time ... 

Take heed of the wind!

(^;   


Joining A Quilting Reader's Garden for  WIPs be Gone

Joining Confessions of a Fabric Addict for  Can I Get a Whoop Whoop?

See you there. 

 
 

Saturday 9 January 2016

Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2016

What could be better than playing with a rainbow?? 

Playing with two, of course! 

Still working on the border of RSC2015.  It is coming along very slowly but progress is made nevertheless. 

I noticed a "backward" block. Do you see my blooper? 



In the picture below the blocks are aligned correctly. See the 4 colours pinwheel in the middle of all the pinwheels? That's what its supposed to look like. 

In this one, I didn't get the 4 colours pinwheel because one of the block is backward. 


Yep, the green one on the bottom right is the culprit. Some "backward" stitching is on my to-do list today lol. 


On to the next Rainbow project.
Angela at Soscrappy called blue as the colour of the month. Yeah! I love Blue! 

My background fabrics are:
 M&M Millennium fabric and 

these two oldies too.  (I decided to use just one ... for now.)

And for the block itself; what will I do??? 

Hourglass?

Actually, four hourglasses. 


or like this, 

or like this,

No. Like this: 

Hey! Pinwheels again!  lol. Am I stuck in a rut? 


Here's the completed block.

(Not sure about the big red guy in the corner. I'll keep an eye on this as I progress to make sure it doesn't disturb the flow of the colours too much.) 

This block is called "Peace and Plenty". It is also my wish for 2016 to all my followers, visitors, friends and family. May Peace be with you always and may you have Plenty of ... 
love,
good health,
dear family members close by,
good friends,
happiness,
pleasant surprises,
laughter,
hugs,
snow,
smil ...
wait!
What? 
Who put "snow" in there? Oh! and why not? It is a pretty thing and children love it. And of course, plenty of fabric and inspirations! 

This year, Angela twisted the challenge just a notch and called two colours! Oooh! Blue with a sprinkle of purple. 
With the fabric I have picked for my RSC2016, I only need one more colour. Peace and Plenty finishes at 12 inches so I don't need two or three blue blocks to make a quilt. Can I say a fast finish? No! 

All I can say is, it probably won't last all year so I am thinking of making TWO quilts. 

I know, I knoooooow, I said I wouldn't start another project until I have finished a few UFOs.  

Weeeeellllll! I have aaaalllmost finish a quilt. I need to quilt it and hope to show you soon.




(just a little sneak peek)

I would like to have it all done before the end of January but the sooner the better because I WANT TO PICK A NEW RSC block. Yeah!! 










Meanwhile I'll just do some 4 patch because we always need some 4 patches for ... 


blocks,
cornerstones,
borders,
you know,
stuff! 


Until next time... 

;^)

I am linking with Angela for RSC2016 
and Cynthia for Oh Scrap! on Sunday
and Nicky on Tuesday for Scraptastic Tuesday