Cleaning Up

The sewing room needed a good clean up.  My QADD has been pretty bad lately, and it was time to rein it in.  Lucky for me, I was invited to a Birthday Bash this weekend, and I was expected to sew all weekend.  Chookyblue was celebrating her third birthday for the chook shed, and invited quilters from all over the world to help her celebrate.  Hop over to her blog for a linky list to see what everyone accomplished over the weekend. 
For starters, I worked on finishing my green projects.  I made a placemat, but the photo is awful.  Can’t get a decent picture in my sewing room.  It really is a nice shade of green.

I saw this little tutorial last night, and decided to whip one up before I put the green scraps away.

It took probably less than 10 minutes to assemble, and then another 10 minutes to tack the corners together.  You can find the tutorial HERE.

I had planned to get some actual quilting done over the weekend, but it didn’t happen.  So here is my last green project, less the quilting and binding.  Again, a horrible picture, it really is green not black!  And it WILL get quilted tomorrow.  Pop over to Angela’s blog to see more green goodness.

The green scraps have now been tamed, and all fit in one neat stack in my scrap tub.  But the blues were bothering me.  As much as I had made with blue, that pile was still far too large.  I saw a sampler quilt on a blog, and immediately knew that I would make a blue quilt for our Guild’s service project.  It’s not assembled yet, but all the blocks are (almost) made, and the layout and assembly will take place soon.  Here are a few of the blocks – I won’t bore you with all of them (yet).

 I found an orphan block in the blue bag, and it is now a placemat.  And I found 2 small orphans which are now coasters/mug rugs.  I also pulled out some blues that I know I’ll never use, and they’re going to a guild member who makes scrap quilts.  The remaining blue scraps are now housed in the scrap tub with the other colors!

Now that the greens and blues have been put away, there’s room on my sewing table to tackle other things.  Today I prepped five small hand projects – 3 stitcheries and 2 tiny wool appliques.  Should I happen to get a job anytime soon, I want to be prepared with lunchtime projects.  And I can’t use my quilting machine if my sewing table is covered, because I have to move all the piles from the quilting table to the sewing table!  How sad is that. 

I think I mentioned that Dh celebrated a birthday earlier this week, and this was his gift from me.  It’s a Nova Scotia Lighthouse, designed by Kaaren of The Painted Quilt.  I bought the pattern when we visited Nova Scotia last fall.

We’ve had some thunderstorms move through several times over the weekend, so it was the perfect time for sewing, prepping, and organizing.  Friday, however, was mostly sunny and beautiful.  So I’ll leave you with a couple of kayaking pictures.

Keep on stitching….. Sunny

Ahhh…..

Let summer begin!

Today was our first kayak trip of the year.  We went to a reservoir that is quite secluded and usually not at all crowded.  Not so today.  The parking lot was full and cars were parked on the road.  Still, compared to other local lakes, it was peaceful and quiet and a wonderful way to celebrate the unofficial start to summer.

Our other fun activity this weekend was attending  GeoWoodstock.  If you’re familiar with geocaching, this is a mega event that drew cachers from all over the world.  And it was held right in our backyard this year.  A new geotrail was opened in our beautiful City Park, and there were seminars, vendors, swaps, and anything else you can think of that is geocaching related.  It was a huge success, and a big boon to our economy!   DH and I don’t geocache as much as we used to, but we had to attend this awesome event.

In other news, I’ve been on a binding binge since my last post.

This:

Is now this.

I don’t like this at all.  It was pieced a couple of years ago, and I wasn’t happy with their idea for the actual flowers, so I made mine different.  I’m going to add some more quilting and see if I can improve it.  If anyone wants it, let me know.

 

 

 

 

 

This is just a little table topper that was waiting to be quilted.  I quilted flowers, and had fun with it. 

Some of you may have contributed to this little beauty.  These are blocks from Block Swap Adventure.  Again, it was just waiting to be quilted.  It’s finished just in time for Memorial Day and 4th of July celebrations.

And this is my green scrap project for the week.  Pop  over to Angela’s blog to see more green scrappiness. I still need to add some button “ornaments” and a star at the top.  That’s what I’ll be working on after I hit ‘publish’ for this post.  I actually received one of these last year for Christmas from my friend Maria, and I just loved it.  Imagine my surprise when I was looking through my patterns one day and realized that I had the pattern.  It suggests that you applique through all the layers in lieu of quilting, and using that technique makes the appliqued pieces a little puffy, which I love!

I have another green project almost finished, and a surprise for DH, who’s birthday is tomorrow.  I’ll save them for the next post. 

I’ve had a couple of job interviews recently, and another is scheduled for the coming week.  Cross your fingers that I find employment soon.  Quilting is not a cheap hobby!

Keep on stitching……..Sunny

 

FNSI, RSC, GG

Or should I just say “Alphabet Soup”? 
I’ve been on a quilting binge lately, and Friday night (FNSI) found me burying thread ends into 3 small quilts.  I’m saving the bindings for my sewing day later this week.  I’m lazy, and don’t like to carry my sewing machine if I can make an alternative plan.  

I’ve also been doing some embroidery this month, and it’s almost ready to share.
Cross stitching has also been taking some time, and I feverishly tried to finish a design for Gifted Gorgeousness for the month.  While there are no requirements as to what has to be accomplished, my goal is to finish one Santa House each month.  After all, it was a BOM.  (2 years ago)  Block 5 was finished on the 15th, but not posted until now.

I’m not stitching them in the order they were released, but I am stitching one per month!!
I’ve been so busy, that I haven’t accomplished much for RSC2015 this month.  Green is our color for month, and I have managed to make my Dresden plate.  Click on the link to see what all the other talented ladies are working on.

I cut out another small quilt pattern yesterday, so I should have more green to share later. 
Speaking of green, Spring has definitely sprung here.


There is nothing to search for in this photo, I just LOVE Spring green!  DH and I have been hiking several time, and have loads of wildflower pictures, as well as a few other things.  I’ll share just a few of my favorites. 



We’ve also been to several Garden Centers, where DH has bought a ton of flowers and herbs, and he actually has everything planted already!  We’ve been to markets and a bakery. And we’ve have several meals cooked outdoors on the grill.  Spring is so much nicer than Winter!!!!

Back to stitching now…….Sunny

First May Finish!! FNWF

I spent my FNWF sewing down the binding of my first May  finish!    Be sure to visit Cheryl's blog to see who linked up and what they worked on this month.

Green is the color for the RSC2015 for May.  As soon as I heard the color announcement, I headed down to the sewing room and made my monthly doll quilt.  I have a lot of green scraps so I’m trying to decide what to do next.  If you click on the link above, you can see what others are doing in green.

Happy May……..Sunny