A Much Needed Update!

 It has been almost a month since I have posted. I have been doing a bunch of sewing but since my sewing room has been under construction, it has been difficult. 

August's color for the RSC is aqua blues. Here are my blocks!

Wonky Shoo Fly

Joy Luck

I also cut pieces for my EPP tumblers but haven't stitched them yet.

I'll link up to Scrap Happy Saturday @ So Scrappy.

Here is my July calendar journal. Only 1 week before August is over and I'm just getting this posted. That's how it goes sometimes!

I joined the #30daysofimprovqal on IG in the beginning of August. This QAL is hosted by @ShannonFraiserdesigns and Amanda @Broadclothstudio. Each week is dedicated to a theme and each day is a prompt. We are already finished with 3 of the 4 weeks. 

The 1st week was all about squares. Here are my blocks.

Week 2 was about stripes.

Week 3 was about triangles.

Only 1 week left!

Linking to Finished or Not Friday @Ayycia Quilts.

School has started and I am back to work. I'm still babysitting by grandson 2 days each week. My sewing room isn't quite finished but it is close. Here are a few pictures.

My sewing table, cutting station and ironing board are still not in. 

The top to my new cutting station isn't on yet.

I'll leave you with some cute pictures of my grandson!

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!   

Finally, I have something to show!

 I finally have a new finish! 

I found some time to quilt my Stacks (of Love) quilt! I finished the top at the end of December 2020 and managed to sandwich it a while ago but never got around to quilting it. I had other projects that I was working on including some secret sewing 😉 but now I needed to quilt this one before I could move to the next step on my secret quilt. 

The fabric is left over from my quilt Strawberry Kisses quilt using the fabric line Strawberry Fizz. My inspiration for this quilt came from this quilt.  I used most of what I had left over and added the black and white strips from my stash. I changed the size to accommodate the amount of fabric I had. 

The backing is a piece of Mary Engelbreit fabric I had in my stash which was donated to me years ago. c.2006

I think it works really well with the front since it has a Mary Engelbreit 

feel to the quilt. What do you think? Great message too!

I quilted in straight lines approximately 1" apart from the top to the bottom.

The binding is a black and white stripe which goes along with the partial strips of narrow black and white columns in the design. See picture above with back and front showing. 

The quilt finished size is 59" x 64.5"

I'm linking to Can I Get a Whoop, Whoop @Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Linky Party @Patchwork and Quilts, Finished or Not Friday @Alycia Quilts, Friday Foto Fun @Poweredbyquilting

I also wanted to recognize the awesome gift sent by Sarah @Confessions of a Fabric Addict for participating in the Hands2Help Challenge. Wow! What an awesome gift! It is nice to be recognized! Thank You!

Well, I hopefully will be able to show off what I have been secretly sewing in not too long! I was able to sandwich the quilt today! Now to do the quilting!

Lots to update!

 My last post was all about the Hands2Help 2021 Challenge. After I posted, I decided to donate another quilt to another Hometown Hero. It was for another teacher/co-worker. On Memorial Day, this teacher woke up with a swollen knee and started to run a fever. Her husband took her to the hospital and she was admitted with a sepsis bacteria infection. She underwent surgery on her knee. 

I was supposed to sub for her on Monday, but she called on Sunday to cancel because she wanted to be at school for her 'kids' (she was released from the hospital on Friday.) That alone is amazing, the dedication this teacher has to her students. Earlier in the year, she also contracted COVID-19 possibly from her one of her students. During that time she taught her kids remotely as her entire class was quarantined. This was also hard on her family as her son suffers from anxiety.      So I quickly added another label to my Watermelon Sparkler quilt and wrapped and delivered it on the last day of school. She was very touched and surprised. 

Drum roll please!

Head over to Sarah @Confessions of a Fabric Addict for the final numbers! You will be amazed at the numbers!

On June 5th, I received some Happy Mail! In my mailbox was this sweet postcard made by Annie @Freezeframe03. 

Annie notified me, on June 2, that I was the winner of her postcard! 

I couldn't have been more excited! Annie makes the most incredible, 

creative art whether it be a postcard, a tag, a journal page, monthly 

calendar page, or a quilt!

I now have 2 postcards from Annie and an envelope. They live in my 

sewing room on top of where I hang my scissors and below my thread 

rack. Just where I can see them and be inspired!

Aren't they fabulous!

If you would like to see more of Annie's creations, please head over to her blog. 

Speaking of calendar pages, here is my May calendar page 

(be nice, it is nowhere near as nice as Annie's!)

June's color for the RSC is purple! I found some time to play around with my scraps and made 10 wonky shoo fly blocks 

and 10 Joy Luck blocks.

After 6 months of rainbow scrap play, this is what I have...

wonky shoo fly

Joy Luck

I'm linking to Scrap Happy Saturday @SoScrappy.

I also made some blocks for the Covered in Love charity. This is run by Kat and Cat Quilts but the May and June drive is being hosted by Tammy @Travelin' Sew I. 

Here are my blocks that will be in the mail this week.

Finally, we took a few days for some relaxation in WI! Here is the view from my new hammock!

Hope you are enjoying the summer!