A small finish and a big makeover

 A while back, between working on the Costa Rica quilt, I got this book out of my library.

I have always been intrigued by these amazing quilts when I have seen them at quilt shows. Susan @QuiltFabrication showed this design on her blog. It was simple enough to do as a table runner and the size was preferable to the one in the book. 

I choose to do small before making a large quilt as they looked complicated.

I choose 3 Kona blues from my stash and Kona silver for the background. 

This method of 3D quilts is made with triangles. You sew each column of triangles together rather than rows. 

Using 3" triangles, this table runner finishes at 15 1/2" x 47 1/2". I straight line quilted 1/4" around each color area ~ simple but effective. 

I used a backing from my stash. 

I think I may make some placemats to go with this table runner. I'm not sure how much of the backing I have left but I'm sure I can find something. 😆

Linking to Finished or Not Friday @Alycia Quilts, Beauty Pageant @Bolttobeauty, and Friday Foto Fun @Poweredbyquilting

But that will happen after this is done!
My sewing room makeover!

This is where I sew.

It is a small room in our basement. It is carpeted with a berber, the same as the family room part of our basement. 

It is chock full of sewing and crafting supplies, fabric, books etc. besides my sewing, cutting and ironing stations.

Amazingly, I usually can locate anything in my room pretty quickly. 

However, carpeting is not the best flooring for a sewing room. I am pretty diligent about picking up dropped pins and needles and I have a rule to always wear shoes in my sewing room but there is an occasional pin that drops without my knowledge. Also, threads and fabric cuttings are difficult to keep cleaned off the floor. 

So...

...this is the current status of my sewing room. We will be laying a laminate flooring down that can easily be swept and washed. 

So where did all the stuff go?

Yikes! That's a lot of stuff but it did give me the opportunity to weed through some things that I no longer want or need (much of it donated to me.)

My sewing machine and ironing station was moved up to a spare bedroom, and my cutting station is the dining room table. I do have a commissioned project that I'm working on. More on that later and an update on our progress.

Secret quilting reveal

 Today I am able to show you the quilt I have been working on! 

I finally gifted it to my SIL last night. His birthday was in June but we postponed the celebration for 1) they were in the process of buying a house and 2) I wasn't finished with the quilt. 

I made the quilt to honor his heritage. Jose was born in Costa Rica and all his family still live there. Jose came to the US to get his master's degree. I wanted to make a quilt that included things that reminded him of his home country. After much research, these are the blocks I decided on using. 

I put this together using several different resources. The narrow sashing is made with Kona Prussian as are the words Costa Rica and the binding. 

All the blocks are paper pieced. 

The backing is one piece of a coordinating color I found at JoAnn's. The borders are also from JoAnn's.

I raw edge appliqued the heart and Costa Rica in the heading border. I used a free heart clip art for the heart and a font (don't remember which font) on my computer that I enlarged. 

I straight lined quilted in the borders.

In most of the blocks' background, I FMQ a stipple and did a 

simple enhancement of the shapes of the figures. 

The capuchin monkey pattern was purchased from On William Street, the sloth was purchased through Etsy @CreoNodo, and the tree frogs were purchased from Silver Linings Originals.

The hummingbirds are a free pattern online at lillyella.com, the sea turtle was purchased from KohatuPatterns at Etsy, and the macaw is from On Williams Street. 

The waterfall, the palm tree and the volcano were draw and pieced by me, the bird of paradise is from Kohatu Patterns, and the quetzal is from eQuilt Patterns. 

❤️ Costa Rica finishes at 56" x 60.5"

This quilt was labor intensive...a labor of love. I have to say that I'm glad that it is with my SIL so that I can move onto other projects. 

I'm linking to Can I get a Whoop Whoop? @Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Link Party @Patchwork & Quilts, FridayFotoFun @PoweredbyQuilting, Off the Wall Friday @Creations -Quilts, Art, Whatever, Beauty Pageant @

from Bolt to Beauty, and Finished or Not Friday @Alycia Quilts

A little bit of this and that

 I'm not quite ready to share my almost finished secret project (a birthday gift for my SIL)! I am hand stitching the binding and then need to label and gift it! Soon!

But since July rolled around (how can this year be going so fast?), there is a new color of the month for the RSC, dark blue, and a new block for Covered in Love charity (stars).

I cut and sewed 10 wonky shoo fly blocks and 10 joy luck blocks in dark blues. 

wonky shoo fly

Joy Luck

I also cut many dark blue and purple scraps for my tumbler blocks.

(I never got around to cutting purple scraps in June) 

Now to hand stitch them! 

Linking to Scrap Happy Saturday @So Scrappy.

Here are my star blocks for the Covered in Love charity. 

Kat @Kat & Cat Quilts is back to hosting this round after taking 2 months off to catch up. May/June was hosted by Tammy @Travelin' Sew I. 

July/August is typically star blocks, a favorite! There are so many to choose from!

Linking to Midweek Makers @Quiltfabrication, Stitch and Show @Life in the Scrapatch, and Monday Making @Love, Laugh Quilt

 

July also means a new calendar and the finished calendar for the month of June! 

June is a birthday month in our family including mine! 

July is the start of the Macaron Mystery Quilt hosted by Cheryl @MeadowMistDesigns. This month is all about fabric requirements and picks!

Here are my choices.

Mostly from my stash but I needed to add the light polka dot fabric and get a bit more of the Kona cactus and Kona white. 

This is my 3rd mystery QAL with Cheryl! It is a nice, easy pace and Cheryl's designs are great! Will you be joining? 

At my knitting club (we meet on Monday nights), one friend asked if anyone heard of a knitted potholder that was a folded type (her niece wanted to know and sent some pictures). So in usual fashion, we all start a google search to see what we could find. It turns out that the only method we could find was crochet. 

So on Tuesday night after I finished knitting my project, I started to crochet one that I found on YouTube. It is a pretty interesting technique that intrigued me.

It is double thick and made from cotton yarn. It was actually pretty fun to watch come together and fairly easy so I offered to teach it at knitting this past Monday!

Hope to be back soon with my secret finish!