busy… busy

Been keeping busy…I just love sights like this one …a sure sign of work getting done.

 

Turning all those tiny 1” scraps into this. 

It’s going quicker than I thought.

 

It does help to be listening to this while I work …such a good book!!

Can’t seem to put it down or the sewing  ☺

tears for a sick sewing machine

I’m still cranking out blocks for my latest scrap quilt. 

I have 34 so far…

 

 

Only because of this sweet little Featherweight machine, have I been able to keep going …since my Bernina is very ill. 

She started sounding more like a machine gun than a hum…and that can’t be good!!  She had a check up recently and a clean bill of health so it was totally unexpected.

I’m hoping she recovers quickly and can play with me again soon…

but in the meantime… the Featherweight and I are spending time together.

Feeling Scrappy

Time to clean out the old scrap bin again…

and make those little pieces into something useful.

 

Thanks to Mishka for the fun idea…

and to Susan for an awesome design!

stash busting

The scrap bins were overloaded (once again) and driving me nuts so I took the cutter to them and chopped up a whole bunch of 2 1/2” squares.  About 2,000 of them!

 

Then I went looking for an idea for what to do with them all and found this 100 patch quilt by Deanna.  Perfect!  I went right to work on it.  My squares are a little bigger so my blocks finish at 29”.  Two blocks are done…10 more to go.  It’s enjoyable because each little piece has a memory of a past project.

 

Still have plenty of scraps but at least I can close the drawers now.

 

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…and, BTW, we had a nice Easter.  We all get together for breakfast.  The guys are in charge of cooking it.  Then the kiddies are stripped down to diapers and let loose with the dye.  And the tiniest one really liked his new Easter bibs.  That makes me feel happy.  What a fun day!

Housing report for February

I’ve been busily working in the fabric housing department and loving every moment of it.   That’s how I work on them…a moment here and  a moment there.

 

Then I sew my little houses together into 9 patch blocks. 

 

92 houses so far.  It’s starting to look like a quilt!

Ready to start building houses

I am so excited to be joining in on Jeaneke’s “Building Houses From Scraps” challenge.  The goal is 365 little 3” houses throughout the year… one for each day of 2012.  This will be a test of my “stick-to-it-ive-ness” abilities for sure.

So I sat down and prepared myself to succeed.  I rummaged through my tiniest scraps, cut them into appropriate sizes and sorted them into their own little quarters.  Now when I want to sew up a house, I just need to grab the pieces and go right to work at the sewing machine.

  

It seemed pretty simple so I gave the system a few test runs and so far it working pretty good for me.  Now I’m ready to start in January.

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BTW..I’m paper piecing my houses and adding scrappy black borders on the blocks instead of sashings and cornerstones.  And I’m trying to have something or someone peeking out of every window.

It’s going to be a fun 2012! 

I’m hoping it will be a great New Year for all of us.

Spice of Life

This is my design wall this weekend.  They say variety is the spice of life…well I have a lot of variety.  1. I’m always working on my Florabunda applique blocks…(and someday I will actually finish them.)  2. I started making my “Cold Wind Blows” baskets.  I decided to shrink the pattern by half and make a little quilt.  3. My bow tie leaders & enders blocks are multiplying quickly.  I finish a few with every one of my 4. Jacob’s Ladder quilt blocks. 

Speaking of which…

I only have 7 more blocks to go to finish my design.  Very scrappy isn’t it?  You should see my much lighter scrap bins.  I still have some rearranging to do on this quilt and then decide on a border. 

Besides a little sewing today, I also helped Mr. Sunshine install new outside light fixtures and made applesauce from our apple tree. 

Our house smelled so wonderful!

Two for One

I’m still at work on my latest quilt and cleaning odd pieces out of the scrap bins.   16 blocks are done and lots of pieces are cut and ready.  Here and there throughout the day, I wander into my sewing room and sew up a block or two, or cut a square or two.  Very easy..very relaxing.  And satisfying to see all those little scraps being put to use.

 

Bonnie and Lori came up with the best idea!  And now I’ve joined in.  I keep these tiny squares next to my sewing machine and use them for leaders and enders while working on my quilt.

 

The results are another quilt in the making.  Which is so fun by itself that I have to restrain myself from sewing ahead on just bow ties.  They are 3 inches.  I don’t know if I’m going to stop at doll quilt size or keep going.  We’ll see.

A First

 

168 little apple cores all stitched together.  No two alike.  It’s going to make a cute little doll quilt… about 24” x 28”.

It’s even kind of fun looking at them from the reverse side. 

But I’ll never see that again..

…because I’m getting it ready for the quilting part. 

I am going to hand quilt it.  Then because it was hand pieced, I will also hand stitch the binding on so I can say that it was 100% hand made.  That is a first for me.

tiny pieces of fabric… too pretty to toss

Yesterday morning I sorted through all my tiniest scraps

And trimmed them up nice and neat to about one inch (give or take a bit)

And by the end of the day they had become this.  An 18 x 24 inch quilt. 

 

And I went to bed happy.

No end in sight

I started my Nine-Patch Challenge quilt…cutting up my choice of fabric and piecing them into blocks… but without any idea as to how I will put them all together.  They look prettier and prettier with each block I add…so I’m sure I’ll come up with something.

A little project to start off 2011

I was so close to finishing the top for this little quilt late last night that I stayed up stitching away till 1:00 a.m.  I should know better than to work on details such as measuring and cutting sashing when I’m tired because I got it wrong and had to come back this morning to fix things.  It made it very close for the sashing fabric…I started with less than a quarter yard scrap and after having to redo it, all I have leftover are crumbs… almost dust!  I was holding my breath!

Now to quilt and bind it and then I’m going to display it in a ready made frame.  The quilt is 18” x 24” and so it will fit just right. 

And another one…

Of course I couldn’t stop at just one bag…no…Nanette’s pattern was just too much fun to put together. 

I had some favorite fabric strips that were saved together and thought they’d be perfect for this, except the pattern calls for 4 inch strips and I found that mine were only 2 to 3 1/2 inches wide.  Drats! 

So I donned my thinking cap, jimmy-rigged the pattern a bit, did some extra piecing and came up with this.

Woohoo!  I like it.

Other than the lining, I used only scraps.  No two strips on either side are alike and there wasn’t even enough to make two handles of the same fabric…they are similar but not the same. 

 

A new bag and a little lighter scrap bin.  I’ve used those favorite fabrics nearly down to crumbs.

Half way to a quilt top…almost

Twenty-three blocks finished and twenty-nine left to do….or… three rows done and four left to go. Either way, I’m almost halfway done.  I love scrap quilts and this one (The Road Less Traveled by Lori Smith) is VERY scrappy so I’m free to play around a lot on each block.  A fun process.

A minute here and a minute there = quilt time

It’s been a great summer but the past couple of weeks have been on-the-run and sometimes crazy!  As you can see by my design wall, though, I’ve been able to find a moment here and there to put together few quilt blocks. Those treasured little bits of time are sure good for the soul.

A Little Variety

I didn’t have much opportunity at the sewing machine this past week but I did manage to squeeze in a little play time with these blocks.  I’m using the same fabrics and same block pattern (by Lori Smith) but rearranging the colors so each block is original. 

So far I like how it looks.

Scrap Bag

I was sorting through the scrap bins when these two fabrics landed beside each other on the table.  When I noticed them, they struck me as ideal for that new bag I’ve been needing.  I found a third scrap to match and all together there was just barely enough to do it.  So this became my weekend project - made entirely from the scrap bin.  Woohoo!

Mr. Sunshine and I also planned to get some outdoor projects done but the weather wouldn’t cooperate.  This past week we’ve had lots of rain, wind and chilly cold.  So weird for June.  Instead, we spent the time playing indoors with our granddaughters.  Which is way more fun than yard work. 

A little bitty challenge

Stuffed in a drawer, I found a small plastic bag of leftover scraps from a quilt I had made.  The pieces of fabric were all very tiny, the biggest ones just 5” by 1 1/4”.  At that size, they are usually discarded as useless.   I thought, “What was I thinking?”  It was time to toss them…or…hmmm… could I really use them?  The wheels in my head started rolling so I challenged myself and this is what I came up with.

Now, just as soon as I bind it, we have a new topper for the coffee table made entirely from those teeny tiny bits of fabric plus some muslin.  And they aren’t junk anymore. 

Do you see the candy dish full of old Scrabble tiles sitting there on the coffee table?  Our family has so much fun with those.  I’m always finding messages of some sort from the kids after they’ve been here.  They get very creative and make me laugh.