Sunday's Summary

This has been a good week...at least as far as time spent in my sewing room. Today was the baby shower for my niece. The Wings! quilt was well received. Yay! 

I finally finished my Craftsy BOM quilt! I really like how it turned out. I'm calling it This & That...an appropriate name for a sampler quilt...with bits of different  techniques and quilting.

It was a beautiful sunny day when I finished sewing on the binding so I rushed to take these pictures...just in case the weather wouldn't cooperated after I labeled and washed the quilt. 

Here it is with all it's crinkly goodness and label. 

On the back you can see the quilting better and the label. 

Say hello to my DD1's sweet little dog, Ole. I love him to pieces. 

I also finished the 2nd sock I was knitting. There is room for improvement but I am quite pleased with them.

I learned the kitchener stitch for cast off from this video tutorial. It is a great tutorial!

After finishing my This and That quilt, I took a break to do some creating of my March Art Journal Challenge. I contemplated what to do for the theme...green and shamrocks for St. Patty's Day, Easter eggs for Easter? With both in the same month this year, it didn't seem appropriate to highlight either...after all I'm not Irish (except on the 17th Ü) and Easter is on the last day of the month. So I decided on....

Kites!

I found this cute girl on the web while googling kite flying...cut her out, printed her on fabric and then colored her with colored pencils. 

I used the Touchdraw app on my ipad to draw the kites in 2 different sizes...search my scraps for small pieces of lighter colored fabric for the kites, month, year and days of the week and raw edged appliqued them to the sandwiched pages. Kite tails, string, and wind swirls were FMQ. I am really enjoying creating these journal pages. Here is the link to the Flickr group for more Art Challenge pages.

While spending wasting time searching the net, I came across this site to make some really cute, simple paper toys.

(I can't remember how I exactly linked to this site but I did pin it so I could find it again.) 

I was intrigued to try making these Circus Riders using the printable, some poster board and paper clips. Aren't these too cute?

You use the paperclip to make the wheel turn as if riding a unicycle.

Very clever!

 What has kept you busy this week?

Sunday's Summary

It has been a week and it is time for my Sunday Summary of what's been happening here. I got a good amount done this week (at least in my sewing room) but the most exciting is....a finish! The baby airplane quilt is finished...quilting, binding, labeling, and washing. I'm named this quilt Wings!

Unfortunately, the weather was not cooperating today...so no pretty outside pictures.

Besides quilting in the ditch around each airplane... I  FMQ in the negative space to resemble isobars or wind currents. The squares formed where the 4 propellers come together, I quilted a twirling circle to give the concept of the propeller movement. In the border, I FMQ the saying..."Give me wings and I will fly." The font is long and wispy to give the feel of a sky writer and I added a little plane. 

Finished in time for next week's baby shower!

Purple is the color of the month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. Here is my block! To see some inspiration, click on the button on my side bar and it will take you to the challenge and link up. 

February is also the final month in the BOM with Quilt Story. This month the block challenge was 4 patch. I decided to do a disappearing 4 patch. 

Since I made all my blocks 6" instead of 12"...I will be framing each block in Kona Snow to give the quilt a more modern feel...a lot more negative space. 

Next month is the reveal!

I have also almost finished the quilting on my Craftsy BOM quilt. 

All the blocks are now done and I am quilting the border. 

Stay tuned...it should be finished soon!

The Weekly Progress Report

Although I feel like I spent a bit of time quilting this week, I am at that stage where there isn't much to show...yet. 

I started quilting my Craftsy BOM quilt and have worked on 10 of the 20 blocks. Since this is a sampler quilt, each block is quilted differently. For the most part, I am straight line quilting using echo quilting 1/4" from the edge. Here are a few of the blocks.

Sorry for the poor lighting but the weather hasn't been cooperating for good photos

 Due to some time issues, I am putting the rest of the quilting on hold for a short while. Even though I have known about this deadline, it is quickly approaching. So on Thursday night, with graph paper and pencil in hand, I started designing a baby quilt. 

Yesterday I made 10 of the paper pieced blocks...14 more to go. I'm loving this block and can't wait to put it together. Aren't they just too cute?

On Friday night I attended a lecture and trunk show by Karen Combs at my LQS. Karen is known for her quilts of illusions as well as being an author, pattern and fabric designer.  Here are some of her illusion quilts using her fabrics. The illusions of 3D are created by the color values used. 

I apologize for the poor quality pictures.

Each quilt took on a different look when you turned it 90° or more. Here is an example of a 180° turn.

This was one of my favorites. I love how this cube is floating. 

Until next time...

Catching up and FNSI

Work has been very busy most of the fall so I haven't spent as much time as I usually do in my sewing room. 

So I took a little time off of Blog Hops to do some catching up. 

I had fallen behind in both the Craftsy BOM and the BOM with Quilt Story. 

For the FNSI, I made these 2 blocks that I will use in place of the April Craftsy BOM blocks. 

Disappearing 4-patch

Disappearing 9-patch

The April blocks were supposed to be English Paper Piecing. Since I am already have a long term paper piecing project in process, I decided not to do those blocks and replaced the blocks in the quilt with these. They are the last of the blocks I needed to make!

After sewing the blocks, I started knitting this scarf.

This will be a scarf, hat, and mitten set that will be donated for a 5 year old boy. One of the schools that I work at adopts families for Christmas and this was one of the needs. The pattern is very easy and goes fairly quickly. 

 Between Hops, I managed to complete these Craftsy BOM blocks.

October blocks were paper piecing.

September blocks were curved piecing.

I am now working on sashing and the borders!

I also worked on the BOM with Quilt Story blocks. 

October was Pinwheel. 

November is Log Cabin. 

Each month has a theme but you could choose any block that fits the theme. My blocks are also half the size...measuring 6". I do have a plan...hope it turns out like I envision in my head. 

I have the week off for Thanksgiving Holiday! I hope to get a few more things done as well as joining in the fun of the Holiday Lane Pillow Blog Hop! It starts on Wednesday! Check here for the schedule.

Some Sewing and a Giveaway

It has been some time since I've posted any sewing news but I have been busy...sewing and life in general. I have been keeping up with the blog hops over at Sew We Quilt even though I didn't get signed up. I'm just lovin' the Stacks of Bowls! If you haven't seen them, you can take a peek at the schedule of hoppers here.

Any who...you ask what I've been doing? Well, I finished this new table runner and placemat set (the table runner has been finished for a while but the placemats were waiting to be made.)

The fabric is Hometown by Sweetwater. I just love this line! It is so much fun to look for names of cities/towns from all over. My DH and I have even looked up a few on google maps.

I love the giant rick rack detail.

The pattern is called Riff~Raff by Silk Road Creations. 

I also caught up on my BOM quilting! Here is the August block for BOM with Quilt Story. The theme for August is fussy cut which was a little challenging for me because only one fabric that I am using is able to be fussy cut. The rest are blenders. 

Here are the blocks all together: hour glass, fussy cut, rounded, flying geese, 9-patch, HST

And here are the July and August blocks for the Craftsy BOM with Amy Gibson. 

July blocks: Dresdens

traditional

modern

August blocks: stars

I also made 2 blocks for the Quilting for Kids charity group on Flickr. 

These string blocks were fun to make!

I have a few more projects that I have been working on but you'll have to wait to see them. Here is just a peek...

They are for the Dots on Dots Blog Hop coming in September!

Now did someone mention a giveaway? Yep I did! 

During the Red White and Blue Blog Hop, I was elated to see that I reached over 200 followers! This did not go unnoticed...love the encouragement from my followers! So as a thanks to my followers, I have this giveaway made from my Hometown collection.

A mug rug (mug not included)

A coaster set (mug not included)

Here are the details:

1. You must be a follower of my blog or become one (all are welcome to join). Tell me in your comment.

2. Tell me which gift you would prefer if you should be chosen ~ the mug rug or the coaster set. (1st drawn will get their 1st choice)

3. If you are a no~reply blogger, you must leave your email in your comment or I'll redraw.

4. Giveaway is open to all and will end on Friday, August 24th at 10pm CST. Winners will be chosen by Mr. Random Generator.