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? 

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 little bit of quilting

If you read my blog you know that very shortly we will be heading to Norway for some family time, hiking and relaxing (my DH grew in Norway and his family lives there). I haven't started a new quilt since I knew I would be going and didn't want to have a WIP that might turn into a UFO if I lost interest while I was away. Instead I have been working on smaller projects and putting more ideas in my head for when I get home. 

One of the things that I made yesterday was a block for the new Quilting for Kids project on Flickr. This quilt is a boy's I Spy Quilt based on Katie's (swimbikequilt) I Spy 10 Little Things quilt. 

Here is the block that I made ~ very easy peasy!

And while I was rummaging through my stash for boy I Spy fabrics, I found a piece that I thought I could whip up fairly quickly into a small girlie quilt since I needed a project for: FNSI and to meet my personal challenge to sew out of my older stash. Here is what I sewed last night. 

The Sunbonnet Sue cheater fabric was inherited years ago from my mom and was a panel to make a small pillow. Sorry mom, that was never going to happen. The pink with tiny red dots and the muslin was given to me by a friend of a friend whose mother could no longer sew but had a huge inventory of hoarded fabric. Someday I should take a picture of the stack that I received which was only a teeny, tiny bit of the total. But that's for another day.

The purple and green prints are from my stash of 30's fabric. 

I started by cutting out the little panels and framing them with the pink. After putting them together and measuring the length, I figured the width size and then searched my stash to see what I had to coordinate. I sewed the column of Sunbonnet Sue slightly off center and this is how it finished around 11pm before calling it a night. I will probably leave it as a flimsy until I get back from vacation (unless I get antsy to sew something) but I did find a backing fabric from my stash! Not sure what I should do with this quilt. Any ideas for donating it?

Join me here in seeing what others sew this Friday Night. 

Another Friday night

If your looking for my entry in the Bloggers' Quilt Festival, it's here.

Last night was the FNSI hosted by Heidi and Bobbie. I had all the intentions of getting a bit done. I had been playing with HST recently and finished this chevron top and wanted to have it sandwiched so I could quilt it on Friday night.

But that didn't happen since I was called into work a few extra days and never made it to my LQS to find the perfect backing.

Plan B was to work on my red, white, and blue blocks for the up coming hop and the block I signed up to make for Quilting for Kids. After work, I took a few minutes to visit blogs on the Bloggers' Quilt Festival when my husband comes home from work. I could tell something was up with all his activity and could over hear his phone conversation.

Swarm! 

He calls to me and asks if I wanted to go with him to get the swarm. 

[one of my hubby's hobby is beekeeping]

So we head off to find this!

So now the bees are safe and sound in a hive box and hopefully will happily go about making honey!

Back at home, there is still time to sew however this little sweetie comes visiting with our DD1.

We is such a sweet little guy and not much gets done when he is visiting except walks, play time, and snuggle time.

But I was determined to do some sewing. So when my DD1 took a little night nap, I headed to my sewing room and worked on this block.

A 12 1/2" Square in a Square block for Quilting for Kids on Flickr. It will be in the mail soon! 

This block was so easy to put together, I had a few minutes to look through my stash to see if I could find a backing for my chevrons before I called it 'quits' for the night. Look what I found!

I think it will work out perfectly! Now to work on piecing the back...sandwich and quilt!

Well, even though it wasn't exactly as planned, my night was quite productive! How about yours? Head over to Bobbie's blog to find out what other's accomplished.

What did I work on...

for the Friday Night Sew In? 

After a very unexpected dinner invite and fun evening with our very close friends, I came home and started sewing. I already planned on working on a tutorial that I will be sharing soon. So I got to work sewing and taking pictures of the process for the tutorial. (I like tutorials with lots of pictures). I will only share some peeks today so stay tuned for the whole process. 

some strip piecing and scrap busting...

finished....

I also stated working on another vintage dresden. 

before removing from the soiled backing fabric

ready for a new project ♥

Now off to see what others have worked on...won't you join me here?

Friday Night Sewing

Yep! Last night was the January FNSI! I was able to get a bit of sewing done :D

Did you? 

Last week I showed you this:

My cut squares for the Sew Scrap Along at Pleasant Home.

Since my husband was out of town this week I was able to sew them together into this:

Sew last night I began ironing the blocks and organizing them onto my design wall, trying not to over think the placement of the scrappy blocks. I arranged them into 10 blocks across and 12 blocks down. 

[The whole quilt will be 10 across by 18 down but I was running out of room.]

Then I marked them to keep them in order and began sewing the rows together. I got several done before I called it quits for the day night.

The bottom 5 rows are sewn together.

And this is what I have left to arrange.

60 scrappy blocks!

Now I'll be heading over to check out what other sewing was accomplished that night. Join me here.

Progress has been made....

Yes it has! Only 2 more blocks need to be made on my personnel challenge quilt and all 20 will be finished!  These blocks have HRT [half rectangle triangles] which are a bit tedious to make. Just sayin...Hopefully I'll get the last 2 pieced tonight and then work on sewing the top together! 

In the meantime, I have purchased some backing fabric and batting for my Birdie Stitchery BOM quilt. I thought I wanted some silvery gray for the backing but came home with something entirely different. I will be piecing the back to include the extra block I embroidered. No pictures yet. 

I also cut out 180 4 1/2" squares and 360 2 1/2" squares for the Scraptacular Picnic quilt I'm starting as part of the Sew Scrap Along hosted by Jodi over at Pleasant Home. These were cut all from my scrap bins [not my stash]. 

After I missed a few FNSI, I once again will be joining the fun this Friday night. You can go here to sign up. Thanks Bobbi for hosting this month! 

Here are a couple of dishes I have been cooking up.

Potato, Bacon [Canandian], and Corn Chowder

A very colorful and tasty meal.

Beef and Mushroom Ragu

Both of these recipes are pinned on my Pinterest Board -Looks so Yummy!

The results are in....

Yes they are! Last night was the monthly Friday Night Sew-In hosted by Heidi and Bobbi. Did you join in?

As noted in my last post, I had to take my machine in for a little tune-up so I was working with my second machine, my Husqvarna. I didn't want to work on my WIP's that I started on my Elna. Every machine is different and I just didn't want alignment issues. So last week I cut out some fabric for a new project.  Here is what I have finished after sewing last night ~ 48 blocks.


Edit: After reading several comments, I realized that I inadvertently lead you to believe that I finished all 48 blocks on Friday night. I actually had finished 16 blocks during the week and 36 blocks for FNSI for a total of 48 blocks. 

I saw this project on Sew WE Quilt when Allison from Cluck Cluck Sew was featured for the Wantobe Quilter campaign. 

It seemed like a simple project to use up some of my 'less preferred' stash. 

You see, I have a dresser full of many yards of 'less preferred' fabrics some which was inherited from my mom, some from the years I was sewing clothes for my family, and some even donated to me.  I have pretty much gotten rid of anything that was not cotton but much of what is left is leaning towards becoming 'vintage.'  Do you have a stash like mine? 

Hope I'm not alone...

Since I am pretty much running out of room for my newer, much preferred stash, I challenged myself to use my 'less preferred' stash in every other quilt.  This is actually my 2nd project...I joined Summer Bow Tie Quilts, making them only from 'less preferred' stash, but that is a WIP from my Elna. Pictures soon.

The busy, bright, cheater crazy quilt fabric was any inherited piece of fabric. To tone it down some, I partnered it with Kona Champagne. The technique is a stack and whack. My blocks started out 8" and will finish at 6 1/2", a little smaller than Allison's. There will be 72 blocks, 9 rows of 8 blocks. I'm pleasantly surprised at the results so far!

I also am getting ready for...

a project using this fabric! Ghastly isn't it? Stay tuned...

and 

a project using some of these.

I do have a finish for September! My Birdie Stitches BOM is done. 

Only 3 months to go....

I'll be attending a local quilt show today! So excited!

But first, follow me over to Heidi's blog to see what everyone was up to on Friday night...

I'm joining...

the Simple Things Quilt Along over at Charming Chatter.  

I have decided to join in even though my summer is packed full of wedding activities. Last summer's quilt along was so much fun that I just don't want to miss it. Kelly has assured me that the quilt along will go at a slower pace so I should be able to keep up.  I'm hopeful even though I haven't had anytime recently to sew/craft anything other than for the wedding.  Here is a peek of one of the things I've been working on. I've made well over 30 of them. 

More on these later.

So I have decided to do the smaller version of the quilt due to my time constraints. Here is Kelly's...isn't it pretty.

Carol over at Brown Quilts is offering a larger version of the quilt.  Here is Carol's quilt...so lovely in its patriotic colors!

So last week we were to pick out our fabrics and today we got the cutting instructions.  I have chosen to use the lovely Charlevoix fabric line by Minick & Simpson for Moda. I fell in love with this fabric when it was introduced and I think this quilt will be perfect for it.  I will be using Bella white for the background and a red & white dot from my stash.  Take a look!

Perfect don't you think?

Note: There is still time to join my giveaway.  Just scroll down to the previous post or click here. It is open until my birthday, June 20th!

Also, next Friday night, June 17th is the FNSI. Click on the button on my sidebar to join in on the fun.  

FNSI Results!

Although I sewed most of the night, I can't show much...  

The evening started with making this little strawberry pincushion/scissors FOB.  It was simple and easy to make...and just darling! The free tutorial is from Vanessa of V and Co.

I did spent most of the evening quilting my daughter's wedding quilt.  I only had the border left to quilt as I finished quilting the blocks about a week ago.  Here's a little peek. That's all for now!

The top picture show the outside border with the single cable pattern quilted.  You can see the quilting better from the back (bottom left picture). On the bottom right, you can see the quilting on the blocks. The inner border (yellow) is stitched in the ditch.  

I was also excited about...buttons!  

A friend from work had 3 jars and a tin of buttons and told me to go through them and take what I could use.  Really!!  I love buttons!

 I think it goes way back to my grandma and mom who each had a button box that I loved. I would play and sort and examine the different buttons! 

I have a small collection myself...any chance to expand it...YES! 

Here are the ones I chose...after playing sorting for awhile.

Aren't they sweet?

So what did you do for FNSI?

Friday Night Sew-In results and a little more!

Did you join in the fun for last night's FNSI?  Here are the things I accomplished.  Again not quite as much I hoped but nonetheless, I did accomplish something!

I finished stitching the February block for the Birdie Stitchery BOM.  I am caught up with a week to spare before the next block is released! 

This is a good thing!

I also finished Block 8 for Block-A-Palooza - Basket of Geese!

This block is a applique block - a change from all the pieced blocks.  

I chose to machine applique the geese with a small blanket stitch and the basket with a zigzag applique stitch. 

 I like how this block is so different from the rest but fits right in.  

Take a look!  

To be honest, I am a little out of my comfort zone.  

I not used to purchasing fabric and making a quilt without knowing the end results. I chose not to use the fabric that the designers were using - even though it is among my favorites right now - I didn't want to spend the money not knowing what this quilt would look like. 

 Are you like this or do you like a mystery?

 So I chose the line Sips of Summer with a few other fabrics mixed in to round things out.

After the first few blocks, I really could not see how this quilt would come together...but as I add blocks...it's pulling itself together. 

What do you think?    

On a final note, I would like to send my thanks to my mug rug swap partner, Heather Spence.

 Aren't they cute!  Love the shoe!

I'm off to my sewing room! Hope you enjoy your day!