Choice made................

I decided to go with #3 choice from my previous post.  I not only liked it best, it is also one of those hard to use prints because of the size of motifs.  It will be perfect in 8.5" x 9.5" blocks.

While I was at it, I chose a backing fabric too.  This is a surprise project, not at all planned, started just by looking through drawers of sewn pieces.  I need to turn the iron on today and press fabrics so I can do some cutting.  I also sewed the top and bottom borders on the medallion quilt and need to press it too.

This is the quilt top I want to add to.  I have a few of the half rectangles leftover from making this top but need to cut a lot more.  It will be mostly light ones added.  Here is the post where I finished sewing this part together, with my idea of how I was going to finish it.

I'm not sure how much I'll add to it at this point.  I'll just start cutting and sewing blocks.

Here is another UFO that has been waiting for me to work on it.  I showed it just about a year ago and I still haven't made any decisions on it.  I finished the machine embroideries in December 2019.  I'm not sure when I started them but it may have been earlier that year.  Here is another quilt I made with a different size of the same embroideries.  I was going to keep it but it ended up going to a little girl in the hospital, the child of a friend of my granddaughter's.

Cutting, sorting, binding.................

Yesterday morning I die cut 17 more fabric strips into rectangles and squares for Colorwash.  I had previously cut 43 fabrics and have 43 more fabric strips to go.  Since I usually use only one of each print in a colorwash this 100+ group of cut pieces are just a portion of what I will need.

While the washing machine was running I looked through some embroideries I have done in the past for these 2 pieces.  I want to do another quilt with this style block.  The one on the left was a sample block for a quilt I made for the store I was working at.  On the final quilt I used butterfly embroideries instead of flowers.  

Here is a portion of it at the fair booth for the store I used to work at.  The green checked fabric is a flannel and I want to do another one with flannel.

This is the store sample I made with the hummingbird embroideries (block on the right in 2nd photo above).  I think I mistakenly made the same block twice so it was a leftover.  This quilt is the same idea as the green one with 4 patches and embroidery.

Here are some of the embroideries I found while looking for those 2 blocks.

The only machine embroidery I have done in the last few years is the redwork blocks for 2 quilts and Christmas stockings for my great-grandchildren.

I did some more binding on the batik quilt last night.  I have about 17" left to do on a long side so I'm almost half way done.

Prediction for possible snow flurries around noon.  I think some areas in the south have had more snow than we had this past winter.

Need to work on.............

At the end of 2019 I did some machine embroidery, redwork children on Kona snow fabric.  I have been thinking about the quilt I need to make and have gone back and forth between a pieced sashing or an alternating block.

Meanwhile I have been collecting fabrics to use in the quilt.  This will be a priority project for me so I need to come to a decision on the design soon.

Yesterday was a family day spending time with my east coast family, meeting my grandson's new wife for the first time.  We were joined by some local family at the restaurant last evening.  More good memories for me.

Stocking progress........

I decided to reposition the embroidery a little lower on the Christmas stocking so the design wouldn't be so close to a seam.  I still have to make the cuff and embroider the name on it.  I was tired last night and decided I should wait until morning to tackle that part of it.

The lining is a modern Christmas print by Alexander Henry, lots of cute animals.  I like the lining to be light so you can see down into the stocking.  

Yesterday I paid all of the bills for the rest of the month, picked up a few groceries I forgot on Monday and delivered a Christmas gift to my sister-in-law.

Snow will start today and now they are down to 2-5" of light fluffy snow and high winds.  I'm happy their early predictions of 6-14" isn't happening here.  Now IN and MI is where the most will land and they always seem to get more than us.

Still sorting and cleaning..............

I'm still wandering into my studio and trying to sort, straighten up and clean the room.  What do I find?  Piles of pieces and parts that have no project in sight.  There are enough 9 patches for 4 blocks and strip pieced units for 5 blocks.  This will all go into a box with a label for later consideration.  It looks like a winter project when the TV show fall season starts.

These are machine embroideries on a black print batik.  I have several more of the Mola type designs and I was planning on doing a quilt with them at one point.  I would say they are probably 10 years old. The embroideries are about 6" square.  I'm sure I'm going to find a few more 'started without a plan' items before I'm done.  I had fun making them though so there is no regret for time spent on them.

Now I really must get that border sewn on the Matrix quilt.  The end off the month is creeping up.

We got in on a little rain last night, about 2 tenths of an inch.  The day before we got one tenth of an inch, a little over a quarter inch total.  Our grass is going to stay half brown at that rate.

Trimmed and ready for binding...........

This is one of the very first batiks I ever bought, a Bali brand batik from the early 1990s.  This is what I chose for the binding on the African quilt.

I got the quilt trimmed, the basting pulled out and the binding cut.  

While I was in the basement doing all of that I finished doing the redwork on my embroidery machine.  

Evie (no reply commenter) asked yesterday who is the designer of the blocks.  It was a Cactus Punch package with designs in 2 sizes.  Sorry I don't know the name of the package.

I'm reading another David Baldacci book that is hard to put down.  I hope I can make enough time to sew on the binding today along with starting some cookie baking for the season.

It started to snow before 11 p.m. last night.  I'm hoping they are right that the main part of the storm will be south of us.

A good quilting day.............

I quilted in 3 sessions and finished quilting this African fabric quilt.  You might be able to see that I just did straight lines from edge to edge following the piecing design.  I used black Aurifil thread on top and it is a fine thread so it hides pretty well in the prints.

Since I spent so many hours on it I turned on my embroidery machine which sits right next to my straight stitch machine and embroidered a bunch of redwork for a quilt while I was quilting.  I made a baby quilt with these same designs in a smaller size about a year ago.  These are closer to 4.5" x 6.5".  I haven't designed the quilt yet so I don't know what size I will be trimming them to.

Finish #2 for April............

I finally have another finish for April.  It was a month of sidetracks but fun ones so I'm not complaining.  This little quilt is 33" x 43.75" and I will keep this one.  I have a few favorite baby quilts that I keep, the rest I gift.  The fabric is all Aunt Grace's reproduction 1930s.  The embroidery is done on my embroidery machine and the designs were from Cactus Punch many years ago.

Basting and more triangle squares.........

Last night I sewed enough triangle squares to make 5 blocks.  Each pile is either 8 alike or 4 alike.  If I don't like some of the combinations when I lay out the blocks I can always make a few more that will work.

I didn't have much ambition yesterday with the barometric pressure change.  We didn't get much rain during the day.  It sounds like the big rain is coming on Saturday and Sunday.
 

I also started hand basting the redwork baby quilt I pieced in February.  I will ditch quilt between rows of blocks in both directions and also the diagonals along the triangles.  Then I will decide the rest of the quilting.

Good sewing day.........

While my friends were here yesterday I sewed the redwork quilt top.  It is 33.5" x 44.5" so one width of fabric is plenty for a back.  How nice to not have to press 5-6 yards of fabric and seam them together.

I quilted this tablerunner several years ago and it has been waiting for binding.  I finally cut it and sewed it on last night.

These placemats are even older, quilted a long time ago.  I wanted to use the same black with gold metallic stars for the binding but I couldn't find the small piece that was leftover.  Then I would find the binding fabric and couldn't find the placemats.  This went on for years.....and finally one day I found both the placemats and the binding fabric and I could finish them.

The fabric on the back has gold metallic on it too. 

It was a good day to sew since it turned cold for one day.  We are expecting 60 degrees on Saturday through Monday.  I plan on trimming bushes over the weekend.  I always want to do the trimming before they leaf out and it is usually too cold in the winter to do it.
 

Redwork.......

I pieced quarter square triangles and did a layout that gives the impression of on point blocks.

A NO REPLY commenter wanted to know where I got the redwork designs.  They are an old Cactus Punch package from the late 1990s.

Then I turned the quarter square triangle blocks one turn to the right.

I decided this is the better of the two layouts with the limited contrast between the two darker red 30's reproduction fabrics.

This is a better photo of the colors in the prints.  Since the redwork blocks are one way designs it made sense to use the Lily of the Valley one way design for the plain squares.

My two friends are coming over to sew today so I hope to work on this project.

I have some more blooms in the inside garden.  There are 2 orange blooms and a bud close together on this one.

There was one more bud on the champagne color cactus and it bloomed yesterday too.

Embroidery and rows of tumblers.............

I hadn't used my embroidery machine since December and I want to make a child's quilt with the red 30s reproduction fabrics.  I embroidered 12 blocks yesterday and trimmed them to 5.5".  Now I have to design the quilt.

 









Yesterday I also finished making the first 2 rows of 3" tumblers and while watching TV last night I sewed 2 more rows and got all 4 rows sewn together. 

I haven't pressed them yet.  I hope I can cut some of the larger tumbler shapes today and sew a couple rows of them too.

I have the next 2 rows of 27 tumblers laid out so maybe I'll get them sewn too.  It is supposed to be bitterly cold today so it should be a good cutting and sewing day.

A give away....if you have an embroidery machine.......

I had seen Lapel Stick on several other blogs and they were hosting a giveaway for it.  I contacted the company and they sent me some samples.  I would like to share with other machine embroiderers today.  I had been looking for a nice glue stick that didn't leave a residue in the area around the stitching, and also one that didn't gum up my scissors when trimming.

I loaded this old Amazing Designs pattern on my memory stick and brought it to my machine.  Here I am preparing to sew the outline of the birdhouse.  It was stitched once on the green fabric to show me the location and to give me an idea how large to cut the applique fabric.  I used the Lapel Stick glue to hold the fabric in place.

After stitching the bird house outline, I gently lifted the edges of the birdhouse fabric and trimmed close to the stitching line.

Now the machine is doing a tacking zig zag around the perimeter of the birdhouse.

The birdhouse stitching is all completed and the bird has been straight stitched and is being trimmed.

I wish I would have had some of this lapel stick when I was shopping one day and lost a button when trying on clothes.  Not one store had a safety pin that I could borrow.  Remember the good old days when they pinned price tags on garments?

My giveaway today is just for people who own embroidery machines and want to try the Lapel Stick for applique.  Tomorrow I will have a giveaway for everyone.  In your giveaway entry comment tell me whether you have done any applique with your embroidery machine.  If you are a NO REPLY you are automatically disqualified unless you leave your email address in your comment using AT instead of @ and DOT instead of a period.

I will choose a winner at midnight tonight.

Giveaway closed Midnight 9/29/14

Another gift and die cutting............

I spent the morning yesterday doing the machine embroidery on 4 dish towels for the ladies in the apartments at the mission that our church helps support.  We don't know anything about the ladies so it is hard to get them anything personal.  A new dishtowel and dishcloths always brighten my day so I hope it will brighten theirs.

In the afternoon I started cleaning up an area of the basement and cut a lot of scraps with my die cutter.  This is the 1 1/2" square die.

I store the squares in this Snapware container.  I'm not sure where I bought this one.  The top 2 layers are open and the bottom layer is divided.

There are lids on the two sections of the bottom layer.

There are 2" squares and 1 1/2" squares in it.  When it gets too full to hold any more I'll come up with a project for them.

An interesting day.......

I had promised a friend to let her use my embroidery machine at my house and since I had to stay home waiting for the plumbing and heating guys, it was a perfect day for it yesterday.  She got here about 15 minutes ahead of the guys.  Her embroidery machine is about 18 years old and it isn't easy to do lettering with it.  The guys bled the air out of the line and then discovered that the bleeder was leaking.  That meant draining the boiler and the whole line, replacing the bleeder, filling the boiler and the line with water and then opening every bleeder in the whole house.  This meant moving furniture.....in every room......again.....third time in 14 months.  They were finally done at 1 p.m.

Meanwhile mid morning my friend had to leave and pick up grandchildren and babysit for 4 hours so she came back in the middle of the afternoon to finish the names on the sweatshirt.  By evening I wasn't ready to dive into a big project so I finished 3 bottle/can cozies that I found partially made in a pile I was cleaning up in the basement earlier while the guys were here.  (Click on tutorials on right side bar and cozy tutorial is the second one). Today I have to get serious about some edge finishes on the 2 wonky quilts.

I needed a change....

My poor embroidery machine has been neglected for a couple months so I embroidered a couple squares for a quilt.  Dad wasn't doing well when I visited him and that makes for a down day.  He didn't recognize me and was having some kind of problem with his legs.  He was really out of it the whole time I was there.  It is ups and downs all the time, a really good day and then a horrible day.  I hope I'm not just seeing a preview of what I'll be like in my old age.

On the quilting scene, I got another 2 rows of H's ditch quilted so I can put the binding on now and I will call it a finish for 2011 even though I'll probably have a few more H's left to quilt around.