I forgot a title...and now I can't come up with anything...

You know those weeks that are so busy you lose a day or two in your mind?  Well somehow this week has taken a different track and in all the busy-ness I can't believe it is only Wednesday. Seems like more day than that have passed. Oh well, now I'm not only getting old, I'm getting befuddled too!

I did find time to sew and now have 8 of the 16 blocks done that I want for this quilt...

Double Square Star from Missouri Star Quilt Company sewn with my well aged Curio fabric. I love the look of these stars! Now the little yellow stars in the sashing are just mocked up but I will be adding them  to the finished top. 

My plan is to have an inner border of the cream background, and perhaps a small accent border of a green . Then I'll finish it off with a wide border of the large yellow floral print seen in the upper right corner, of the top left star, in the picture below, that I whacked off in my quest to get an arty shot...I am soooo not a photographer.

There is more running around in my schedule today and while I want to sew more of these stars, I might instead work on getting a binding on the quilt I picked up from Terry my long arm quilter last weekend...or get the borders on another quilt I want to take to her when she lets me know the quilt for my brother is finished. (Boy I'm the queen of the run on sentence today...my high school English teacher Mrs. Rechtin would be so disappointed...God rest her soul.)

Anyway, I'm rambling here... it snowed yesterday...yuck...and it got cold...really cold...double yuck. But tomorrow they are predicting 40 degrees ...double yeah! Still a lot of running around for the week when all I really want to do is stay here...

I'm linking up with Freshly Pieced and be sure to check out all the wonderful projects on Lee's site.

happy stitching-

carol fun 

Shuffling along...

Have you heard about the Moda Sampler Shuffle? It is a lovely sampler QAL where 2 or 3 blocks are added every week. You can read about it here. Now I got to thinking about when was the last time I made a sampler quilt and it dawned on me that I've only ever  made one... the very first quilt I ever made was a little baby quilt with every block different. I made that one 30 years ago....whoa...time flies! That was the beginning of my quilting career... fueled by hormones and pregnant with my first child in my fantasy life I  wanted to bake bread, raise chickens and make quilts.  In reality, I lived blocks away from the best bakery in town, I lived in the city which has strigent restrictions on livestock...darn dashed dreams. That only left quilting...boy I'm glad I could make that wish come true! LOL

I really like the layout of this finished quilt (don't over look that page)  and pondered for a couple of days what fabrics to use... American Jane...Kaffe Fassett...black and white...and then my sewing buddy Stephie suggest the Mon Ami collection. Great idea as I had gifted myself a FQ pack of this line for my birthday... I give the bestest gifts don'tcha know...LOL!

Oh is it so hard to untie that ribbon... did you see that it is a tape measure? Not sure it is accurate. But you can't make an omelet if you don't crack a few eggs and you can sew unless you cut into the fabric. So far I have 3 blocks done...now FQS is releasing 2 blocks a week but other sites like Tater Patch Quilts are releasing 3 blocks a week...you can visit them here. So with 3 I've finished I'm either 50% up to date or 33% up to date... and either way I'm behind... gotta sew faster!


Block #1... I fussy cut that adorable bike with the baguettes in the basket and kitty on the back so when the blocks are assembled it will be upright... all the blocks are set on point.

Block #3...this one was a bit of a stinker...took me 4 tries to get those points in the middle to even remotely meet.

Block #4...easy peasy... I like that graffiti print... see the Eiffel Tower?

My "recipe" for this quilt is to try and use 3 fabrics in every block, one of which is a light. This collection has a nice selection of light fabrics and has several Grunge prints...my favorite tone on tone.

So it is a rainy day... good day to stay inside and sew...and that is my plan. Linking up with Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday.

happy stitching-
carol fun

A new shiny thing...

So, I said I was going to machine quilt the table runner I showed on Monday...ummm... not yet... something else shiny caught my attention and off I went in another direction. I recently purchased this pattern, Looking Glass from Meadow Mist Designs. You can see her patterns here.

And I was up at Fabric Shack on Tuesday and acquired a layer cake of the adorable collection by Ingrid Slyder called Forest Friends. One new pattern plus one new layer cake equals one new quilt started!

I quickly got 2 of the 5 rows on my design wall but had to stop to get dinner together and then I worked in the yard for a while. I'll get back to this tomorrow. In the meantime take a look at these adorable forest creatures...

aren't those the cutest little red foxes you've ever seen?

Even the bear and the skunk seem charming...LOL!   And I love the background fabric with the polka dots. This is the second quilt I've made that I've used grey fabric which comes as a surprise to me as I've always thought that gray was boring. I'm rethinking that opinion... its not boring...it is a nice supporting color for other colors!

I'm linking up with Freshly Pieced today... check out what everyone else is working on... so many quilts I want to make!

happy stitching-
carol fun

Sudoku in the checkout lane...

Well it certainly took me longer to get to the checkout with my Bar Code quilt than I anticipated. Turns out I had cut and sewn several of the low volume strips the wrong width, and I had to take them out, and trim them down, and then sew them back it...sheesh. It was like standing in the express checkout line behind someone with 99 items in their cart...it took FOREVER!

Finally finished...yeah!!! Now along with dealing with the wrong width strips, as I was sewing the rows together I kept seeing patterns I didn't like. It ended up being a big Sudoku... I didn't want the same color to appear in the same row either horizontally or vertically. I kept moving a block here, a block there... no now there are two pinks in the same row...no that puts two greens in the same column... wait a minute if I switch the blue block with the black block... no that doesn't work either...arghh!! In the end the best I could do was that the same color does not appear in any horizontal row, and the same color only appears in one vertical row. At least I think that's what I have... and I can't do Sudoku worth a darn.  Perhaps I could have gotten it to work if I hadn't come to this realization before I had 4 of the 6 rows sewn together and I refused to unsew anything.  I'm anal, OCD, neurotic, ADHD and stubborn...I'm a great big package of crazy all tied up in a colorful binding...LOL!

And speaking of colorful, check out this fabric I found for the binding..

It is a Benartex KANVAS fabric from Maria Kalinowski. Isn't this fabulous? I bought the last 2 yds on the bolt from Sew-A-Lot in Centerville Ohio. This is a binding I know will  find its way onto lots of my quilts.

Here's an idea of how it will look on the finished quilt...

Now to get the back made and send this off to the my long arm gal, Terry.

I'm linking up with Freshly Pieced today.

happy stitching-
carol fun

Stars in my eyes...

I've stars in my eyes and on my design wall. I made 3 more of the Charming Star blocks with my novelty fabrics and I think this is all the blocks I'm going to make for this quilt. First up I made one in shades of dark red/burgundy...

I found some more Thomas the Tank Engine fabric and I think the green engine is Percy. My older son adored TTE and use to quiz me as to the color and the number of each engine... I use to have them all memorized but it is long gone now. Next is a sled and mittens and assorted snow gear, movie memorabilia, the United States flag which I now see I put in sideways (I'll fix that today), crazy cats, cars with Christmas trees strapped to their roofs, letters include the initials of my son and daughter-in- law, and dog tags... quite a mix of stuff.

Then I put together a dark green block...

I got this zippers from an American Jane collection, little billiard balls, a lucky pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, little cardinals, a tennis player, pine cones, ornaments and Santa. If you enlarge the picture you will see the the Santa in the middle is only wearing boxer shorts... honestly who thinks of this stuff?  I find it hilarious, as most people aren't going to see that unless I point it out.

And finally a dark brown block... I'm calling this block my homage to Debbie Mumm. This is the last block I did and I only had 2 novelty fabrics with brown backgrounds in my novelties pile. I got to thinking what else my be lurking in my stash. I have my own system for organizing my fabrics and all my Debbie Mumm fabrics are in bins in a little root cellar off of my sewing room. I stored them that way because when I make a quilt with Debbie Mumm fabrics I always end up using just her designs, as the fabric colors just go together so well, I've been collecting Debbie Mumm fabric for about 20 years, and I am particularly fond of the older stuff she did.

In this brown block, 5 of the eight fabrics are Debbie Mumm...

the upper left corner is little chefs by Debbie Mumm, next is cute cats, M&M's (I only had a little bit of this one), polka dot cows which are closely related to polka dot chickens dontcha know...LOL, and all the rest of these are Debbie Mumm fabrics... the man in the moon wearing a mask, tuna and cat food cans, pretty birds and little sunflowers.

And here are two possible layouts of 12 of the blocks which would make a nice size lap quilt about 50" X 66" without sashing. First up the girl version with the pink princess-y block...

or the boy version without the pink princess-y block.

I like them both. so I think this is a successful start on a quilt for my yet to be conceived grandchild.

Now you would think that working with all these novelties would have gotten this out of my system for now... but you'd be wrong. In pawing through all my Debbie Mumm fabrics I've gotten a itch to do Charming Star novelty print quilt using just my Debbie Mumm fabrics. I envision it as a quilt for my inner child, not any yet to be conceived grandchild. Stay tuned to see where this leads. First I need to re-organize my novelties stash as it is strewn all over my sewing room, and I need to finish up the Bar Code quilt and I need to get a binding on my APQ Go 4 It quilt that I just got back from Terry my long arm quilter.  It looks so good! I will never ever ever ever ever ever ever run out of quilts to make!

Hoping to link up with Freshly Pieced today...

happy stitching-
carol fun

Wandering off in another direction...

So I finished making what I think is enough of the low volume blocks I need for my Bar Code quilt (you can see the instructions for the block here on Kviltstina's blog) and turned my attention to making the scrappy one color blocks I need to complete the quilt. The next color I played with was yellow and here is where the top stands.

Now this isn't the final arrangement of the blocks, I will mix up the colors when I get all 35 blocks completed. Here is a close up of one of the yellow blocks... a nice variety of tone on tones and dotty fabrics and smattering of novelty prints.

But then another quilt on Pinterest caught my eye and I wandered off in another direction and ended up making these two blocks...a pattern called Charming Stars from Moda Bake Shop but made with novelty fabrics... have I ever mentioned how much I love novelty fabrics well... I LOVE NOVELTY FABRICS!!! LOL!!

I cut my squares 6" so the block is finishing at 16 1/2". I'm not sure how many blocks I'm going to make yet but I figure at least 9...or maybe 12...or maybe 16...I'll just have to wait and see where it goes...and in the meantime I am having a blast with my novelties stash.

+

A very pink Santa is diving into the pool
at the Rudolph hotel...

                                     An adorable Viking is lifts a cup of ale...

Mmmmmm...bacon!

                                              Paddington Bear also sauntered by...








This yellow block contains lots and lots of my favorite things...

Happy little blue birds...

                                 Vintage salt and pepper shakers like
                                   my Italian Grandma collected....

And speaking of Italians...
this vintage looking Italian chef...

                                                          Of course there would be a
                                                           polka dot chicken...

Lots and lots of polka dot chickens...

I can't wait to play with another color block of these novelties. I think I can work on both of these quilts in tandem...which will make each take longer to finish but it will be a FUN time!

Hope your week has some FUN sewing too! Hoping to link up with Freshly Pieced...always lots of things to see there.

happy stitching-
carol fun

yep yep yep...got messier...

As I predicted last week this project was going to be messy messy messy...and it sure is...

Now I do have a little more to show for this mess...I've made 12 blocks using the pattern I found on Stina's blog Kwiltstina which you can find here.

I will mix up the colors when I sew them together. My plan is to have 9 different colorways. My younger son saw it and said it looked like a barcode...and he has a point... here it is in black and white.

Interesting... and for closer inspection I have included a bit of fabric showing the Sagrada Familia basicila by Gaudi in Barcelona...and some sewing paraphernalia, oh and some Wimpy Kid fabric in black and white.

And look...the Beatles are making an appearance too! Boy I wish I had more of that fabric. I think I got it at Walmart years ago.

Soooooo... I should have kept closer tabs on how many blocks I was making. I've done some figuring and I figure I need 7 more of the low volume blocks. Here's one on my cutting table before being trimmed to 12 1/2" square.

Do you see the 3rd strip down from the top? I made it by sewing together leftover squares from my Go 4 It quilt. It is kinda like peanut butter and crackers...pieces aren't running out at the same rate so I'm trying to find a new home for them. Anyway it certainly adds to the scrappiness of the low volume blocks.

And while I had plenty of low volume for this quilt I did end up making a trip to Fabric Shack and adding a few more to my stash. I got some cute novelty/low volumes...

I got colorful arrows, and the cutest little lobster, and hangers I'd like in my closet, and a pink bike with a Christmas tree in the basket and fun clothespins.  When I was getting these fabrics cut it was noted that even my choice in low volume picks are bright!  I can't help it... I just LOVE color!

Well I hope to sew some this week, but so far I've been dealing with other projects. I got 80 marigolds planted in my yard but I could use a few more... so off the the garden center again. Also I want to look for some more perennials as several of mine that I planted last year did not come back...boo hoo!  It is going to be hot hot hot here the next week or so. Since I'm NOT an early morning person, I do my gardening later in the day... after dinner...so it is always race with the setting sun... it is my attempt at cardio...LOL!

And if Freshly Pieced does a WIP Wednesday link up today go see what else is new...

happy stitching-
carol fun

It's Wednesday???

Well the 3-day weekend was lovely, but as always seems to be the case, I totally lose track of what day it is. I did a little yard work and cross stitched a bit, had a good time at Taste of Cincinnati, and enjoyed a cook out at my older son's home. I spent a little time thinking about what quilt project I wanted to do next...and was very very very tempted to start a new quilt but in the end, I straightened up my sewing room and got back to work on my APQ Go 4 It quilt. You can read about theQAL here. I started this back in February and...

Ta-dah!!!  81 blocks are sewn together.

My design wall still has the Phillip Jacobs Stack N Whack on it so I had to photograph it on the floor. The ridges you see are the rug underneath it. I was too lazy to move it. Big Dude dropped by to give a quick once over and seems to approve... however there may have been a bit of an incentive in the kitty treats I offered... just saying.

At this point it measures about 81" square. I want to get it up to about 86" and plan to add some scrappy random low-volume borders.

There is quite a variety of fabrics in this one. I should have keep track of how many fabrics I selected but I didn't...oh well. And you may remember that I dithered  and moaned about wanting to have all the directional fabrics in this quilt point in the same direction...ummm...fugeddaboudit! The more I sewed all I wanted  was to get these blocks finished! Right side up, upside down,  cross ways... I DON'T CARE anymore! My only criteria was that I didn't want the same fabric to touch and I think I succeeded in that regard. However Big Dude may have to make a closer inspection to verify that conclusion.

I do know there is a healthy amount of that cute little chick fabric scattered liberally across the top... and that makes me happy!

Now to get the borders on and get this one off to Terry to quilt...and give Big Dude a few more kitty treats!

happy stitching-
carol fun

Minor changes...

I'm a little late for WIP Wednesday but here it is anyway. I made some minor changes in the rectangular blocks for my TV Dinner quilt.  You can see the pattern  by Modern Quilt Relish here.
The fabric is from Carrie Bloomston's Paint collection which you can see here.

If you make the picture bigger you can see where I inserted bits of text and fabric into the blocks that were solid colors. To my eye those blocks of solid color were flat...and kinda quiet... and I wanted them to be, well... louder and.busier! I like busy! Busy busy busy!

In some blocks I just inserted a little strip of another one of the solids...

But with several of the other blocks I was able to wedge in a bit of text fabric...

with little messages...

Now I have to assemble the center. Since I'm making this a bit shorter than the pattern calls for I'll be making adjustments in the spacer blocks. I'm thinking I may cut them random lengths and make the center less regular...we'll see.

Okay, off to get stuff ready for a garage sale tomorrow. I'm thinking this is the last garage sale I will ever do.  I've priced stuff cheap cheap cheap but it takes A LOT of time to get things ready. Ninety nine percent of what I pawed through I forgot I had... and until I knew I had it, I didn't miss it. I just ended up feeling guilty about stuff that was already bought and paid for and forgotten. It would have been easier to have NOT opened the boxes and taken them to Goodwill... which is where anything that doesn't sell will be tomorrow night.

happy stitching-
carol fun

and exhale...

Well, the wedding went off wonderfully and the happy couple is honeymooning in sunny Spain...and I am happy that they are happy!  I was told I would feel let down after the event but really all I felt was tired. Everyone seemed to have a great time. It was a fun wedding. No pictures to share yet, but when I do get some I will post them.

However in thinking about this perhaps the let down phase was the last 2 days where I just didn't seem to get anything done. Oh, I returned some shoes, and some capris and a lampshade but I didn't even go into my sewing room... until today!

I sewed up some more of these hexagons and pondered what I want to do with them. During the initial gung-ho phase I was going to make a really BIG quilt. However those feelings have dissipated and I'm contemplating just working with the 60 some odd blocks I'll get out of cutting the one 25" repeat. That many hexagons will make a nice size lap quilt, or if I use this kind of layout...

I could make a BIG quilt with the amount of pieced hexagons I already have. I found that layout in a new book called The New Hexagon by Katja Marek - Bev's Modern Vintage Hexies and you can see the book here.


I also like this layout which is also from The New Hexagon book...

It takes more hexagons than the first layout but it is different and interesting. I need to mull it over a bit. These are two of the blocks I made today... LOVE the spin!

I have a ton of things I want to get done now that the wedding is over... there is still the plumbing issue in the basement that needs attention, and I want to have some carpet installed in my son's room and my sewing room, and I have to clean out the garage which I should attend to this weekend as I could unload some of that stuff in a garage sale next week,and I need to make eye exam appointments for me and my son, and there are about a bajillion quilting, cross stitch and knitting projects I want to get to. When I think about everything I want to do I'm tired before I get started...LOL...I think I need a nap.

It is going to be a busy summer! Bring on the warm weather!

happy stitching-
carol fun