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.