Sunday's Summary

It is Spring Break and I'm in Austin, TX visiting 2 of our daughters and SIL. I'm so very ready for some warm weather! Back home it doesn't seem like Spring at all. Snow is in the forecast...what happen to an early Spring?

The quilt that I've been showing glimpses of will be delivered this week and then I will reveal the story and some pictures. 

Besides finishing that quilt this week, I made my March Rainbow Scrap Challenge block...yes I know that March is almost over! March's color is orange!

Here are the first 3 month's blocks together.

Pretty!

After watching several more inspiring episodes of The Quilting Show on International Quilting Day, I tried playing a little with stripes. The technique was taught by Anita Grossman Solomon (Episode 902). I found some stripe fabric that I was given in my stash and started cutting squares, stitching and cutting and stitching again. Here are the results.

I think I'll play a little more in the near future Ü

When I get back from Austin, I will be working on quilting my BOM with Quilt Story quilt. This week I sandwiched it...so it is ready to go. 

I have been taking a Craftsy class - Machine Quilting Negative Space with Angela Waters to get ready for quilting this. I purposely made this quilt to have a lot of negative space to practice some quilting in large open spaces. I just hope I can do it!

I'll leave you this week with my fabulous thrift store find! 

Most of these pieces were 25¢, the 2 novelty prints were 50¢, and the Jinny Beyer print was $1 (which is about a yard). Yay!

Sunday's Summary ~ Almost a finish!

Last week I participated in the Blog Hop so I didn't post my Sunday Summary...but I was quilting! 

I am almost finished with the triangle quilt that I posted about here. Yesterday being International Quilting Day, I spent time sewing on the binding and hand stitching it. I am a little over 1/2 way done with the hand stitching.

This is an art interpretation quilt that I still can't say too much about yet. I am so excited about this as it is my first such quilt. 

In honor of International Quilting Day, I watched several episodes of The Quilting Show which were free to non-members this weekend. So I hooked my iPad up to the television and while I hand stitched the binding, I watched

#509 Machine Quilting Magic with Joanie Zeier Poole

#1111 Pleasure of Painting Fabrics with Cindy Walter

Of coarse, I had to stop a few times to take some notes on some tips and techniques. 

I also watched episode #103 Visualizing Color with Joan Wolfrom.

I'm hoping to have time to view a few more episodes.

I also took time to make this banner for my niece and nephew to match the quilt I made for their 1st baby due next month. 

Their nursery theme is airplanes...colors are red white and blue...for baby boy on the way. This was hung to decorate at her shower at work. 

I also played a little with my ongoing hexagon project. I often make hexagons when I don't have a knitting or other hand stitch project to take along to my knitting club on Monday evenings. 

Seems I've been working on these off and on for a long time and this is what I have so far (one more row of scrappy colored flowers finished.) I have been working on the Kona snow flowers lately. I can see from the size that this will continue to be an ongoing project for some time...and all the connecting hexis still need to be done. 

Did you do something special to celebrate International Quilting Day? 

Winter Blues Blog Hop Winners

The Hop is over and I hope you had fun! 

Thank you to all that visited my blog and I hope you come back to visit again for my regular scheduled Sunday 's Summary.

I enjoyed reading everyone's comments and 'meeting' a few new bloggers. 

The overwhelming majority of quilter's favorite notion is the rotary cutter! 

What would we do without that essential tool? 

I doubt that I would be quilting without it! 

For the first winner, Mr. Random Generator choose:

Stephanie who said: I have to say my favorite notion is my rotary cutter! 

                             Those pin cushions are adorable. I follow on gfc too.

And the second winner is:

Sandra Visser who said: Those are so cute. I could not live without my rotary     cutter. Am a new follower via GFC

I have sent out emails notifications. 

Thank you all for participating and a BIG thank you to Michele over at quilting gallery for making this happen.

What will you be doing to celebrate International Quilting Day?

Blog Hop Party and Giveaway!

Edit: My weekly feature, Sunday's Summary will be back next week after the hop! 

I haven't had a giveaway on my blog for some time so I thought that this would be a good time. I joined the Beat the Winter Blues ~ Quilter's Blog Hop Party over at Quilting Gallery. There you can find a list of participants. 

On my last week's Sunday's Summary I showed a little pincushion that I made to adhere to the side of my machine. 

I made it from left over HST from my Giraffe Love baby quilt. It is only 1 1/2" square. I love having it on the side of my machine...a new favorite notion! 

So I made a few more for you!

I will be giving away 2 of these mini pincushions to 2 winners (design...my choice.) I promise that some goodies will also be included. The 1st winner will be chosen by Mr. Random Generator and is open to all. The 2nd winner will be limited to my Google Friends Connect (GFC) followers (also chosen by Mr. Random Generator.)

 Here are the rules:

1. Please only one comment per person. 

2. Tell me your favorite quilting notion.

3. If you are a GFC follower (new or old), tell me in your comment. 

4. If you are a no reply blogger, please leave your email in your comment.

5. I will pick the winners sometime on March 15th. 

Note: the pincushions are stuffed with a combination of crushed walnut shells and polyester fiberfill.

Good Luck and enjoy the Hop!

Sunday's Summary

It's Sunday, which means it is time again to summarize what has been happening in and around my sewing room!

I will admit that with quilt finishes the last 2 weeks, this week's post isn't as exciting. I did have some mini finishes! 

First, my DD1 had ask me to knit a pair of boot toppers in cream or gray. She wanted a pair like the ones I knitted for myself in brown.

(sorry I never took pictures of them to share here)

Looking through my yarn stash, I didn't have enough of either of those colors so I took a trip to the yarn store. I picked up some cream alpaca yarn. 

I worked with a stretchy cast on and bind off technique found on Pinterest here and here. The pattern has three rows of cables for the cuff and ribbing for the part that tucks into your boot. I found the pattern here.

I also made a mini pincushion that adheres to my sewing machine. If I'm sewing with a lot of pins, I use a magnetic pin dish but when I am sewing small pieces and use only a pin or 2, this little pincushion is so nice. I found my inspiration on Kaaren's blog, The Painted Quilt here. 

I made it from the left over HST from last week's quilt finish, Giraffe Love. Stay tuned...I may just make some more and offer them as a giveaway. Anyone interested? Leave me a comment.

This week I have been playing with some triangles. I can't say much about this quilt yet but this is what my design wall looks like. The pattern is inspired by Anna Maria Horner’s patchwork prism quilt. I am using a 6" equilateral triangle instead of 9". I am trying to achieve a pixelated affect using triangles. More about this later. 

With the month of February ending, I completed my entries for my Art Journal challenge. 

I also found some time to play learn a little more about the Touchdraw app for my iPad. Did you notice my new improved button? 

Until next week...

Sunday's Summary

Another productive week! 

This week I worked on another baby quilt. This one for my DD2's best friend, J. I wasn't able to attend her baby shower in December as I was out of town...so I procrastinated...a little. Actually, I did start on this quilt 

with the intention of giving it but then my daughter sent me fabric for Christmas and 2 of the prints were to be used for J's baby quilt. 

Building Blocks was set aside. 

I had to rethink the pattern I would use and search through my stash for more coordinating fabrics. A perfect opportunity for more procrastination...after all, the baby wasn't due until the 1st week of March and I had UFO's to complete...namely Wings! and This & That. 

Yes, I do have a few more...but that's for another day Ü 

So on Monday night after Knitting Club, I decided to start cutting out the fabric. I had decided on using a pattern by Allison of Cluck, Cluck, Sew called Seville. I changed the size to make it a baby quilt and did my homework on how many of each block I would need. On Tuesday, I started piecing. These blocks went together very quickly. The whole top went together in a day and I pieced the back Wednesday.

On Thursday, I started FMQ and while doing so, my DD2 told me that J had gone to the hospital in labor. With the quilting complete, I made and attached the binding. Baby was born that night!

Yesterday, I finished hand sewing the binding, making the label and washing the quilt. Another finish!

Introducing Giraffe Love

 pictures taken before label and washing

I love the back almost as much as the front!

The 2 fabrics sent by my daughter are the giraffe print and the border stripe. I believe they are prints by Michael Miller...the rest of the fabrics from my stash.

On a techy note...I made my first button all by myself! (My blog button was made by my BIL.) I figured since I have been posting weekly summaries of my progress, I needed wanted a button and was determined to figure out how to do one. Yep, it's on top of this post and on my sidebar! Grab it if you like.

Finally, a friend emailed me this knowing that I'm a coffee/chocolate lover. 

Until next week...Enjoy!

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?