Really Random

We are our own Van Gogh. Photo taken this morning.

At this time of year a certain type of Grosbeak arrives at our bird feeders.  We call them stupid heads.  They have really huge beaks and the males, especially like to crash into our windows.  They sit and look stunned for a bit and then fly away.  With a headache.  Then they do it again.  And again.  Stupid heads.

When is it too late to wear white pants?  Is it really too late if it is September and it is still really hot?  Does anyone really care if I wear white pants?

September is my favourite month.  I think it is all wrapped up in the start of school and it is my birthday month.   Husband's too.  I love September.  It fills me with anticiaption and excitement.

I love the smell of crayons.  Just saying. 

Linking up with Random Thursday with Cindy at  Live a Colorful Life.

Just a little fabric...

Sometimes a line of fabric jumps out at you and says take me home.  Sometimes fabric speaks to you.  Calls your name.  Says pick me, pick me!  Madrona Road by Violet Craft for Michael Miller is like that for me.  I just love it.  I love the text fabric and I love the Wild Carrot in Straw.  Be still my beating heart.  I am going to use it for my Proverbial quilt.   Yep.  I am.  I might just have to get some of the other fabrics in this line.  Hmmm.  Yummy.

Works In Progress...

Last week I went back to work.  I am still getting lots of sewing time in but it is obviously greatly reduced sewing time!  That being said, I still have lots of things on the go. 

1)  This is my "Seems Like Fall" sample scrap pack lap quilt. I am almost finished quilting it.  Lots of straight lines.  Don't you love my quilting/gardening gloves!?  I have always used them.  Super comfy, great grip but not that pretty.  

2)  I have fabric everywhere for fabric covered journals.  I just love making them.  I keep test driving fabric to see what it looks like.  So much fun.  I have a lot of home decor fabric samples as well as a stack of Japanese Daiwabo fabric samples that are great for this.

3)  I have added another word.  Sing along, people!  I haven't decided on the actual layout yet and have not joined many of the letters but this quilt along is so much fun!

4)  Kona Modern Quilts guild challenge.  No progress.  Just a pile of fabric.  I think I just need to cut something up and get on with it!

Hope you are having a lovely day and I will link up with Lee at Freshly Pieced for Work in Progress Wednesday!

I won!

I won!  I won!  I won this set of Cloud 9 organic cotton fat quarters from Flare Fabrics.  Aren't they lovely and autumnal?  And how did I win  these?  I had Husband take a picture of me with my Proverbial quilt pattern for the first giveaway from Krista at Poppyprint's Proverbial Quilt along.  I was so excited to see that I had won, that I jumped and scared Husband who was sitting next to me on the couch.  I enter so many giveaways but have won very few things so I was super excited!  I got to relive my excitement all over again when the fat quarters arrived in the mail.

Big thank yous to Marlene at Flare Fabrics and also, of course, to Krista for hosting this fun quilt along.  I made the letters for another word yesterday.  Each time, I can sing a little bit more of the song.  Have a lovely rest of your day.

I am working on...

I played with scraps today.  Green ones to be exact.  I made a slab.  I think that is what this is called.  It was actually a lot of fun but it took a fair chunk of time.  It was sort of like puzzle building.  I tried to cut as little as possible so it took a bit to find pieces that fit together well.  The whole idea was to get a piece of patchwork that measured 12" by 29" so I could cover this composition book and make a fabric covered journal.  I used Rachel's tutorial from the other day.  I did make a few booboos as this was going together and I did need to line it because the black and white print on the book showed through the fabric but I think it looks awesome!!!!  And I used a bunch of my green scraps which are threatening to take over my life.

 I ordered the composition books from Staples.  They are on sale right now.  $1.99 each for those of us in Canada.  They arrived the next day.  That made me happy!

And here it is all finished. 

Then I got smarter and made a second one.  Less piecing more big chunks of fabric.  I really like this one!!!

 Linking up with Judy's Design Wall Monday!  What's on your design wall?

How About Some Flea Market Fabric????

I popped into a thrift store this morning and was immediately drawn to this!  Six metres of Marimekko home decor weight fabric!  $6.99 take it home!  And I did.  This will be awesome for bags and pouches or covered journals.  Happy dance!

It is quite pretty if I don't say so myself!

Have a lovely rest of your day!

How about a little finish?

It's another baby quilt!  I used Faith's Lemon Squares pattern again and again with a few variations.  I wanted this quilt to be a little more neutral.  Good for either a girl or a boy.  I think it works.  Maybe I will call it "Either Or."  I used a whole bunch of different fabrics spotlighting some cheerful prints in the centre of each square.  Mum had given me a length of wonderful vegetable fabric that she picked up at the thrift store.  It made the perfect back with pumpkins, peas, carrots and a bunch of other funny things.  I just had to add one little strip of leftover bits to make it wide enough.   So there it is.  A lovely little finish.  Quilted in a double row on either side of the squares in Aurifil 50 wt in white.  So much fun!

 

Linking up with Quilt Story for Fabric Tuesday!

Bunting! I made bunting!!!!

I haven't ever made bunting.  It was fun!  I used a package of thrift store bias tape.  And fun fabric.  Our quilt guild is celebrating it's second anniversary and we are going to do a bunting swap.  I wanted to make the bunting attractive to fabric geeks.  I used this tutorial.  I must confess that I used a vintage sheet fabric on the back.  So the bunting is reversible.  Just so you know.  Just for fun.

Work In Progress Wednesday on Tuesday

1)  Since I am back to work, I am thinking about what I have on the go currently.  My dear friend is hosting a Christmas sale of handcrafted things at her home in November.  She has asked me take part.  I was not so sure about it but agreed.  I have not done anything like this before but will give it a go.  This is why I have been making some small gift items such as doll bedding etc.  But I also need to have a few quilts just in case someone wishes to spend some big bucks.  It is also difficult to guess fabric choices and colours that might resonate.  Who really knows?  So with those thoughts in mind, I decided throw a bunch of these dark red scraps together.  I had this bag of scraps from a sample bag of something.  I don't know what this line is or was but the fabric has a lovely, silky soft feel.  It speaks of fall or winter, warm fires and good books.  I think it will make a lovely lap size quilt.  I made 16 blocks before I ran out of scraps.  I will follow Elizabeth Hartman's Rail Fence idea and offset the blocks, one horizontal and the next vertical.  And I have a lovely neutral French General fabric to sash it all with.  I think it will be quite lovely and quite a difference to all the baby quilts I have been churning out.  It took no time at all to mindlessly sew strips together.  

2) Fraser Valley Modern Quilt Guild challenge using our own Cynthia Frenette's Kona Modern Quilts fabric is still sitting and percolating in my brain.  I am almost afraid to cut it in case I change my mind.  How silly!

3)  Proverbial Quilt Along with Krista at Poppyprint is quilting along.  These letters are fun to make!

4)  Gender Neutral Baby quilt. I should come up with a better name.  I actually finished this one and can now call it a finish!

5)  Made Bunting for our quilt guild second anniversary sew in swap.  Done like dinner!

6) Modern scrappy bits swap handmade item and scrap package are all ready to mail!!!!!!

7) Did the blog hop.  Had a tutorial.  All worked out well!

So there you have it.  And I am back to work and the blueberries are still coming.

Have a lovely Wednesday!

Linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced for Work in Progress Wednesday!

Scooters!

I finished this baby boy quilt and I went for a scrappy red binding, just so you know.  It was the subject of great debate.  Husband was convinced it should be Kona Ruby and I was just as convinced that a greeny dots was the choice. My blog reader's comments indicated a strong interest in my green idea.   I compromised on a scrappy red with bits of Meadowsweet's Reunion line.  I am quite happy with it.  I used Faith's Lemon Squares pattern and the fabric is bits of stash, some Reunion and a whole lot of Michael Miller's, The British Are Coming.  I got all of that lovely stuff in a scrap pack of samples at a local quilt shop.  There was more than enough to fussy cut all the scooters!

I quilted double straight lines on either side of all the block lines in Aurifil 50 wt in white.  Love that thread!

 Quilt stats:

name:  Scooters!

size:  38" x 48"

quilted by me in Aurifil 50 wt white

fabric: Sweetwater's Reunion, Michael Miller's The British are Coming, assorted stash fabrics

pattern:  Lemon Squares by Fresh Lemon Quilts

Linking up with Fabric Tuesday at Quilt Story!

Design Wall on my last day of holidays...

I was there but now I am here.  This is fun!  Lots of fun.  I have not connected all the letters into words and will play with the layout once I have all the words.  And if you are interested, this is all part of the Proverbial Quilt Along over at Krista's blog, Poppyprint.  We are using Denyse Schmidt's pattern Proverbial Quilt.  I think you may know what I am spelling?  I sing as I sew.

Gender neutral baby quilt in orange, green and white is well under way and I used Faith's tutorial again with some minor changes.  Faith has some great straight forward tutorials that just happen to make lovely baby quilts.

So there you have it.  These have been taking up lots of time too...  blueberries.

And these are just pretty to look at.  Have a lovely rest of your day.  Linking up with Judy's Design Wall Monday.  Back to work for me tomorrow.  Eek!

Some Vintage Sheet Goodness and a Ponds jar

I was just walking into the barn with the camera and this stack of vintage sheets when clever son's lovely girlfriend arrived to pick blueberries.  It was lovely to spend time with her in the patch!  She is an excellent blueberry picker!

The ladder to the loft in the barn is a most excellent sheet prop.  The pink and the stripes are courtesy of Mum who always has an eye out for sheets for me and the two others were picked up the other day when I flew in and out of a thrift shop in record time.  Scored a couple of packs of rick rack as well!  Woo hoo!  For those of you who wonder and even for those who don't, vintage sheets come in very handy when quilting.  Not only can you make a great quilt from just vintage sheets but they often make really great quilt backs.  I use them in all sorts of ways too like bag linings or bags.  A stack of vintage sheet charms or fat quarters makes a handy draw prize at a quilt guild meeting too!  There is a lot of fabric in a vintage sheet!

 I found this 1920s milk glass Ponds Cold Cream jar at the local thrift shop the other day for 25 cents!!!!!  Are you kidding me?  I love it.  I could not be happier to have found this!  It is surprisingly heavy and without any chips.  It is just missing the lid which apparently was aluminium.  It is happily residing on the bathroom shelf next to some other vintage goodness like...  Noxema jars.  Mum credits her life long love of blue glass to Noxema jars!

Have a lovely Saturday!  We have a thunderstorm forecast. I think our heat wave may be at an end and we are okay with that!  Off to do a bit of evening sewing!

Working on some swap stuff...

I signed up for the Modern Scrappy Bits Swap awhile ago and the mail out dates are coming up in September.  I am ahead of the game because I go back to work on Monday and wanted to be super organized.  The whole idea behind the swap is to swap one small hand made item and then at least a fat quarter's worth of scraps.  I did a little Flickr stalking and happened to notice that my secret partner seems to like Mendocino.  Well... who doesn't?  I made a cutey patootie little needle book following this tutorial!

I have to say it was a lot of fun to make and I added some little bits to make it interesting inside too as the tutorial suggests.  I was tickled to find the vintage button that I used for the closure.  It was lurking in one of my button tins and when placed on the needle book, it looks as though the mermaid is holding it like a treasure.  Or at least I think so!

Then I started playing with scraps and making them look pretty too!  It was a lot of fun and I really hope my secret swap partner enjoys what I send her!

And this totally works as a "my precious" project!  Happy dance!!!