Sunday, October 23, 2016

More blocks

Life is so busy!  I am sure I said the same thing last week!  I did make the next block in the Be My Neighbor sew along and I am up to date on the 100 blocks 100 days Modern City Sampler sew along.  I also volunteered to be an angel and made a mini for a recipient in the Teal Mini Swap to support Ovarian Cancer research. I showed the one I received and one I sent in my last post. That's basically all I have gotten done  Someday I really am going to learn how to take straight photos!

I tried something new to me on the binding of this mini.  I have done flange accents many times and generally I sew my bindings down by hand.  However for this mini I cut a 1 1/4" strip of teal and a 1 1/2" strip of pale green and sewed then together and pressed in half leaving the green larger.  Then I sewed it on from the back and machine sewed the binding down on the front in the seam between the green and teal stripe.  Corners were tricky, but it's a method I will try again.

Dresden Teal Mini 18" square

Be My Neighbor sew along


68 blocks done!  only 32 to go!
This is a kit I bought at the Spokane quilt show last weekend.  It's so cute and two friends bought the same one.  It came with snowflake buttons.  I will work on it at a quilt retreat in a couple weeks.
Check out what others are working on at Patchwork Times.

Monday, October 17, 2016

Bunches of blocks

Life is busier than usual it seems!  My works hours have been extended again and it's been 30 years since I worked full time!

I am up to date on my Modern City Sampler blocks on a sew along on Instagram.  I have 62 out of 100 done!
Sorry for this crooked photo, but the top row is sewn together and not put on my design wall straight!  This is the sew along Moda's Be My Neighbor.  I love the brights and some of them have been in my collection a long time.  The blocks are huge, the big house on the bottom row is an 18" block.
Another sew along I am doing is Lisa Bongean's Magic of Christmas.  I am behind as we have already been given up through pattern 11.  These are Fairy Frost fabrics with a print in the middle I have had for years.  It will be sashing and borders.
I was able to get these blocks done this past weekend on a mini retreat with a friend in Spokane.  The big quilt show was this past weekend and we stayed at a hotel for three nights.  We met up with several friends and had a great time at the show and at a quilt shop the next day.  

Linking up with Patchwork Times.


Sunday, October 02, 2016

BIG project complete!!!

I did it!  I finished the 11 foot tree skirt!!!  It was pretty intense and I had to let a few things go by the wayside and had LOTS and LOTS of interruptions, but it's done!  This will go to the USDA building in Washington D.C. as part of the Capitol Christmas Tree project.  This years trees are coming from Idaho and my cousin is in charge of the over 8,000 ornaments and tree skirts needed for 70 trees.  She asked me to make a tree skirt and this is what I came up with.  It's my original design.  What a process!

 Due to lack of time I am only adding two pictures at this time. We took it to my school gym to take pictures.  Doug was up on a ladder trying to get a good shot.  I put a piece of white paper in the middle as we took the pic on a 4 square painted on the floor and the black lines were distracting in the center. To hook the 8 section together I hand stitched cording down the binding and then wove ribbons back and forth.

From the outside in there are trees, river, 8 gold fabrics including potatoes that Idaho is famous for, wheat, which is what we grow and grass to represent pastures and grass seed fields.  Canada geese fly over and then of course mountains.  There are crystals of various colors since Idaho is the gem state. The finale are the syringas, our state flower.

During the summer I had signed up for an exchange to support Ovarian cancer research.  we were given an 8" piece of teal fabric to be used in the quilt in some way and assigned a partner.  I made this wallhanging using the teal in the leaves.  I based it on a pattern by Laura Heine.

This is the wallhanging I received from my partner.  I love the ombre fabrrics and polka dots!  We think alike in our color likes, the brighter the better!

Check out other projects at Patchwork Times.