Friday Night Sew In

Last night was Friday Night Sew In!

It snuck up fast as April is flying by! 

I did join in the sewing fun! 

I have been working on quilting the T-shirt quilt! I am about 3/4 done! I am finding that my machine doesn't really like sewing over the screened prints on the t-shirts. I must go very slow over these areas. It is also a heavy quilt so I must take breaks from quilting as it is hard on my hands.

I'm quilting it with meandering swirls and I'm pretty pleased with the results even through the quilting difficulties. 

I also put together my Temperature quilt! 

I sew the rows together after 18 blocks are made.

It is now 6 rows complete! As you can see, our Spring has been much colder than expected.

And since the Chicago Cubs were playing a late game last night, I decided to switch gears and knit this baby hat while watching the game! 

(and what a great game!)

I adjusted this pattern from an adult size to a baby size. I really like the swirl through out and especially looking down from the top. The self striping yarn shows it off beautifully! 

This will be donated to the hospital to be given to a newborn baby!

I'm linking up to Show Off Saturday @Sew Can She.

Did you join the Friday Night Sew In? 

Time Is Flying!

I can't believe how fast the days are flying by! 

After Spring Break, school tends to get very busy as we head to the finish line. To add to the busy schedule, my daughter made an unexpected but much loved trip home for a long weekend. Her BFF since birth was turning 30 so she came in! Naturally, we spent as much time as possible with her and packed in the activities! We took a walking tour of some local street art with 2 of my daughters.

The following weekend was another packed with activities. The International Quilt Festival was in Chicago/Rosemont! It is very close to where I live. As always, it did not disappoint! Here are a few of my favorites!

I like the colors of this quilt.

I love the indigo color of these vases and the details in the stitching!

I like the Cherry blossom fabrics used as the background for the Chinese letters.

I have seen colored pencil quilts before but I loved the idea of a child's doodles in the negative space!

This quilt reminded me of my blue houses quilt! I love the story behind this calendar quilt.

I have been working on a few things in my sewing room, too! 

It is April and the color for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge is yellow! 

These blocks have been done for a bit however I haven't had time to blog about them. 

I'm linking up to SoScrappySaturday.

My knitting club knits for a local hospital and here is a blanket that I recently finished. 

I have also been playing with all the cut offs from the Regatta quilt and I finally settled on this layout.

It is still in flimsy form as several quilts are ahead of it for finishing! 

That brings me to Friday Night Sew In which snuck up on me! Stay tuned! 

Being accountable

Last week was Spring Break. I usually head down to Austin but this year the timing wasn't so good for my kids. Instead, my hubby and I headed down to Champaign, IL to visit friends. We had a great time!

That also means that I was away from my sewing room for several days and we came back just in time to have Easter dinner with our oldest daughter and boyfriend. 

Before I left, I did finalize the layout of the red letters that I paper pieced. I decided to make a border of the uppercase letters and then I used then lowercase letters in the inside.

I used the same backing fabric for the sashing and borders around the letters to make up the size. 

I also added an appliquéd apple and a mushroom. There was still quite a bit of negative space so I thought I would appliquéd a few more 'things that are red' in some of the spaces.

I appliquéd a strawberry, lips, cardinal, stop sign, watermelon, heart, ladybug, tomato and a red crayon. The border is a red and white ticking fabric from my stash. This flimsy is ready to be sandwiched and quilted. 

(I do have Grandma's Kitchen flimsy waiting to be quilted too.)

I also added borders to the t-shirt quilt. I decided on a narrow inner border of color (pink) and a 2" outer border in gray. 

I will back it with a flannel which I ordered online (and is on its way!). T-shirt quilts are pretty heavy. I'm thinking of using lightweight flannel in white instead of batting. What do you think? Suggestions/ideas/advice are welcome. 

My temperature quilt is growing and now has 5 complete rows! 

It is still pretty chilly out...I was hoping to see more yellows and some oranges. March didn't 'go out like a lamb.' Hopeful for warmer weather in April!

I'm linking up to To Do Tuesday at Stitch All Things, Linky Tuesday at Freemotion by the River, and Fiber Tuesday at The Quilting Room with Mel.  

It is time to post my FNSI results and more...

Last night was the first FNSI that I participated in for a very long time! 

The timing was perfect as it was the start of Spring Break for me! 

I had the whole day free and I spent most of it in my sewing room! It has been a while since that happened!

I pieced some uppercase letters earlier this month and I still needed to piece the lowercase letters. I found Tonya Ricucci's Word Play Quilts book in the library to use as inspiration for making my lowercase letters. I picked it up Thursday after work and browsed through it. I wanted to make them 2.5" finished....half the size of the uppercase letters that I pieced. Tonya suggests 3" or larger letters so I drew out my own using graph paper. 

I did all of them yesterday! Throughout the day and night! For the v and the x, I  ended up paper piecing as the angles were 'getting to me'. 

Maybe I just needed a rest from piecing these small letters all day... 

Anyways, I was pleased with all of them except the k. Somehow, it ended up more narrow that the other letters. I'm sure it was my error in calculating the angles. I couldn't let it go and I thought about it when I should have been sleeping! ARGH! 

So this morning, I decided to draw up a paper pieced k pattern. My first attempt was great...but backwards! 

It must be from the lack of a full night of sleep 😉 

So I drew up another, this time remembering to reverse the pattern. 

It is so much better! Can you tell the difference? 

Hop over to FNSI at Sugarlane Designs and check out what others worked on last night.

I must be in a paper piecing mood as I also worked on my Little Houses this week. The last time I posted about my neighborhood the population was 56. It has now grown to 66 with these additions! 

I love this ongoing project! Not sure when it will end...maybe when I run out of blue scraps! That hasn't happened yet!

I'm linking to Finish It Up Friday @ Crazy Mom Quilts, Finished or Not Friday @ Busy Hands Quilts, and Show Off Saturday @ Sew Can She and Friday Foto Fun @pwoeredbyquilting.

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Friday Night Sew In

I recently came across the virtual FNSI...again! 

I used to participate pretty regularly when it was hosted by Heidi and Bobbi but when they were no longer hosting I thought it was dead. 

The last time I participated was in July 2013! 

While browsing through the internet, I randomly came across the familiar chalkboard for FNSI. 

I clicked on it and sure enough it is the same FNSI but being hosted by Wendy @Sugarlane-designs. 

I checked the old link on my sidebar and it links to Sugarlane-Designs! 

Who knew?

I'm joining in this Friday night! 

Won't you join in too?

A Finish, Progress, and Something New

Of coarse I must start with my finish as it is so exciting! I will warn you that this is a little picture heavy because I am in LOVE with it! 

I finished my Regatta Quilt!

 Yesterday my hubby and I headed over to our local Lake Park and did a photo shoot. 

What could be a better background for a Regatta quilt?

At first I thought I would piece my backing using all the cut offs from making this quilt until I found this fabric! It is the perfect colors!

Here you can see a bit of the front with the back! Thanks to the breeze!

Here is a detail shot of the straight line quilting. I did 3 straight lines across the quilt in each strip. I did not quilt in the ditch which gives it a nice simple pattern on the back. 

The binding is made using mostly the navy color with a little of 2 others darker colors in the quilt.

My sweet Nellie is enjoying the sunshine and the quilt!

Here it is in all its glory! 

The pattern is Regatta by Daniela at Block M Quilts and I followed the QAL at Home Sewn By Us. It finished at 57" x 74". This is my 3rd finish for 2018! 

My Temperature quilt now has 4 rows completed (with a few in the 5th row done). 

As your can see we had slightly warmer temperatures indicated by the greens and yellows! The Hope of Spring🌷🌷🌷!

What's new on my design wall? I've been playing with the alphabet! 

These letters are paper pieced and are 5" square done in reds from my stash. 

I've been playing with the layout. Not sure what it will look like but I will be doing lowercase letters next!

What's new on your design wall?

I'm linking up to Show off Saturday over at Sew Can She.

Tuesday Update

I have continued working on the puzzle T-shirt quilt. After moving things around again to get a better fit for all the graphics, I again grabbed some graph paper and drew the final lay out. I made a list of the finished size for each block and the cut size. Since the blocks were not all the same size, I color coordinated which ones would be sewn together. This the what the process looked like.

There were a few small spaces that I needed to fill with cut pieces from the t-shirts (no graphics) and a few tricky seems that didn't line up easily but it all came together. It is about 47 1/2" x 58 1/4"

I'm will be adding a border...maybe 2" all around and backing the quilt with flannel. But for now, I will put it on the side for a bit as the hard work is done!

As for my Regatta quilt, it is quilted and the binding is sewn on! I only have to hand stitch it down, make a label and do a photo shoot. Here is a peek!

The Regatta quilt is made as part of a no pressure QAL at Home Sewn By Us.

I'm linking with To Do Tuesday at Stitch All Things, Linky Tuesday at Freemotion by the River, and Fiber Tuesday at The Quilting Room with Mel