A bit of stitching...

Its a cloudy day here...looks like it could rain any minute... a good day to stay inside and stitch. I've made progress on my BBD Early Morning Read sampler from the booklet Weekend. I've got over half of the alphabet stitched and I altered the floss color on the "C" and the "N" to represent my sons' names.

I love the heart and the two birds.. I still need to stitch the band around their necks. I did the heart in Smyrna cross rather than Algerian Eyelet. I so prefer Smyrna and it is so quick!

This sampler has a wonderful border... those flowers are so pretty and I like that you use several different colors of floss for them. Some of the flower pop and other fade into the background a bit... a look I like.

In fact, the flowers on this sampler put me in the mind of my roses. Here are a couple I cut, and they are on display in my kitchen.

The one in the center is the same type of rose as the other two, it is just several days older. The rose is called Jump for Joy and is a floribunda... not sure what that means as I picked it for the shape and the color. A nice clear peach that fades to a soft pinky peach and it smells so good.

Okay off to stitch and listen to my beloved Cincinnati Reds play ball. They redeemed themselves a bit by winning the last 2 games after losing 9 in a row... ugh! Check out what others are working on today on Kathy's Quilts Slow Sunday Stitching here.

happy stitching-
carol fun

A finish for Friday...

The week has certainly flown by, but I was able to finish something...my Charm Pack Cherry quilt done in batiks! Just finished the binding last night.

This is the second quilt I've done with the Charm Pack Cherry pattern which you can find here for free. And this won't be the last one I do. They are lots of fun. Right now I'm thinking of doing one in Halloween fabrics. I have a couple of charm packs and  it would be fun to fussy cut some motifs from my sizable stash of Halloweenie fabrics and add them to the mix.

Terry Finnerty of the Walking Needle quilted this one for me in a variegated thread. The panto she used is a large scale design that has a very modern vibe and it is hard to see that it is a panto and not a free motion design. Love that!

I started with two charm packs of Pat Sloan's One for You One for Me batiks and added in a couple more from my stash. I'm really loving that turquoise background too.

Since Big Dude lacks height and opposable thumbs I had to corral my youngest son into holding this quilt while I took pictures. He is an awfully good sport about it. Hmmm... I just noticed something...I was looking at the first Charm Pack Cherry quilt I did... here... and  other Charm Pack Cherry quilts and this one isn't exactly like the pattern. Somehow I've rotated my blocks so every other fabric is a piece of background. Not sure how I did that but I like it! Also I extended the colored pieces into a border which isn't what the pattern calls for but I like how it makes the design area larger.

Well the weekend is upon up and I've got a few things I want to do, but mainly I want to relax. Next week is a busy one... somehow I have 3 different evening events to go to, which is way more than I usually get out...not exactly a jet setter here... LOL!

Hope your weekend is an enjoyable one!

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

Everything's coming up......

petunias!! Hit it Ethel(Merman)... LOL! Okay so the song doesn't exactly roll off the tongue but everything is coming up petunias at my house.

I finally got the sleeve sewn on my Stack N Whack petunia quilt and got it hung in my living room. All of the hexagons were cut out of the fabric in the border, a Phillip Jacobs print from a couple of years ago. Phill does great florals...he is also the designer of the Spiral fabric I'm using for the Stack N Whack on my design wall which you can see here. I LOVE his style.

Terry Finnerty of the Walking Needle quilted this one for me in an all over swirl. You don't see it clearly on the front on the back it is easy to discern.

You get so many different hexagons with this large scale fabric...

I think my favorite hexie is the one that looks like a peppermint...

And in keeping with the Everything's Coming Up Petunia theme here are some of the pots I planted...

I've got those yellow and white striped petunias I was hunting down all over Cincinnati in the pots on the porch railing and in the window box I have purple and white striped petunias mixed in with the hot pink geraniums. I know they are a bit hard to spot in this picture but they are they and I'm hoping they will fill out nicely as summer progresses. And speaking of summer how is the weather in your little spot of the world? We've roller coastered again from the 80's to the 60's...and this morning it is downright chilly. The high is only expected to get to the upper 60's today but I saw an 88 in the forecast for next week so I know this is just another dip on the ride.

Memorial Day is Monday...how did it get here that quick? Don't have any big plans yet except for going to the local food festival, Taste of Cincinnati. Plan on going first thing on Saturday before it gets too crowded... and there will probably be something on my grill before the weekend is over. Other than that I plan to take it easy... sew a little, knit a little.

happy stitching-
carol fun

Trying not to spiral out of control....

So I've sewn all the hexagons I can from stacking and whacking this piece of Phillip Jacobs fabric...

and this is how it looks...

Now there are 54 hexagons here and I was able to sew a total of 63 hexagons from that repeat.  To keep the pattern going in this layout you need 12 hexagons to make 2 rows so I'm  3 hexagons short of adding another 2 rows. I could cut full hexagon shapes from the remaining fabric but right now I'm leaning toward leaving this as it is... no need to let it spiral out of control and get bigger and bigger and bigger... as I am normally inclined to do. The potholder to twin size quilt incident in my past still haunts me... LOL!


In looking at the photo of the design wall I think I have too many hexagons that read light on the right hand side. I can change out a few with the ones I have left over. Not making this bigger gives me options... and options are good...right?

I got some great spinning designs out of this fabric...

Now to buckle down and sew the rows together and get this done. The crafty ADHD is quite strong right now as I have 2 new layer cakes begging to be cut into... and at least 6 other projects in various stages of unfinishedness. I should hang my head in shame...but I won't...when it is their time they will see the light of day again and get finished. What did Descartes say, "I think, therefore I am"... for me it is "I have lots of UFO's, therefore I am...crazy... LOL!

happy stitching-
carol fun

LMNO...on Slow Stitching Sunday...

The title "Slow Stitching Sunday" seems to be a bit of a misnomer today as I have been rushing around trying to tie up some loose ends on several projects. I have had some nice evenings of stitching in the past week while I listened to baseball games that weren't easy to take. My beloved Reds stink and there isn't much hope that improvement is in the offing... so stitching makes those multi-run games easier to take.

This is Blackbird Designs' "Early Morning Read"-from their book Weekend which you can see here. It was published in 2011.

I love the colors in this sampler, Crescent Colors Calico Kitty, Cinnamon Toast, Perfect Pie Crust, Tennessee Red Clay and Used Brick. I have no idea what the linen is I am stitching on, but it is the most beautiful shade of peach-y marigold. It is a hand dyed and it is hard to capture the true color in a photo... the closest I can explain it is, it is a lot like DMC 3827. I wish I knew what it was because I want more!

After stitching a few letters I wanted to see how the border would look and off I went. So far, so good and I love the shape of these flowers. This one I stitched  is in CC Perfect Pie crust and it reminds me of my newest rose bush...

this is a David Austin rose called Charlotte. It starts out a deep yellow and fades to a creamy white. I love the shape of English roses as they remind me of peonies, another favorite flower that has too short a life span in my opinion. With these English cabbage roses I can enjoy the shape of peonies all summer long.

Hope you are having a nice Sunday...I'm having the newlyweds over for dinner... looking forward to watching Mr. Selfridge and stitching the evening away.

happy stitching-
carol fun

Blogger's Quilt Festival - Spring 2015 - ROYGBIV

I just figured out...okay I just saw this on someone else' blog and  read all the info Amy posted about the Blogger's Quilt Festival...and realized I could enter 2 quilts...yeah! This quilt is my entry in the ROYGBIV category...Postcards from Kaffe, Brandon, Phillip and Mary!

I got the idea and the pattern for this quilt from Debbie at A Quilter's Table and you can view her tutorial here.

When I first started this quilt I thought I could keep it small ... wall hanging size... but in the end it is a nice lap size...it just got away from me! This happens to me lots...once I set out to make a potholder and it ended up being a twin size quilt...I have issues with self control - LOL! Anyway, this is 9 blocks wide and 15 blocks long. All the colorful prints are either Kaffe Fassett, Brandon Mably or Phillip Jacobs and there are no duplicates. So in a way this is a scrappy charm quilt too!  I LOVE bright colors and these fabric make me very happy! I've collected black and white text prints for a while and I love how they look when you pair them together.

I used a tiny block and white dotty print for the separating strip on each postcard and I used it for the binding too. The quilt was quilted  in a bright variegated thread by Terry Finnerty of The Walking Needle.

So you may have identified prints from Kaffe Fassett and Brandon Mably and Phillip Jacobs but are you scratching your head about Mary? Well, I'm talking about Mary Engelbreit.. and this is my favorite postcard message...

I've had this black and white print in my stash for a long time and it made the perfect postcard... don't you agree?

Thanks so much for stopping by... if you like what you see and have some time please read my other posts... I have lots of interests...quilting, cross stitch, knitting, making cards and jewelry... notice cooking and cleaning are no where on that list. I do them but under duress...LOL!

happy stitching-
carol fun