April OPAM

What a busy month!  It's past my bedtime, but I have to post a few projects for OPAM.

 A couple of years ago, a friend gave me a bag of scraps, and I managed to make 81 nine-patch blocks from them.  I thought that would make a nice size quilt, but I actually ended up with two quilts!  This was the second one that I put together, but it is the only one quilted so far.  It's hard to see the actual nine-patches in this photo!

The color for RSC18 was yellow/gold in April.  After I made my very simple regular blocks, I wanted to make a doll quilt to use up some more scraps.  I've had 4 of these hexies leftover from a quilt several years ago.  It was finally time to put them to use.  I made 5 more, and a doll quilt was born.

I made another version of this quilt last year, and gifted it. Then I decided I liked it so much, I should make another.  It's from Gail Pan's Christmas book.

And shortly after I began stitching this, another Gail Pan pattern was published in the Primitive Quilts magazine.  I was instantly in love with it.

And last but not least, an altered version of a Pam Buda Prairie Women pattern.  We had 8 people in our Prairie Women group, and most of us decided to make this smaller version of the original quilt.  In my sewing room, the sashing was gold, but outside in the daylight this morning, it somehow turned green!

We escaped to the Smoky mountains for a few days, and as usual, were just in awe of the natural beauty.  Here are a few of the highlights.

Okay, off to bed so I can get up early and get back to stitching!                 Sunny

March OPAM

Easter Sunday is winding down at our house, following a very lazy day and a delicious dinner prepared by my personal chef.  I hope all that celebrate had a blessed day.

I started seeing OPAM posts early on the 30th, and after looking around, realized that once again, I did not have a finish for the month.  At least this month, I was close, and didn't have to start a new project.  I spent the better part of two days quilting this little guy.  It's very dark out, and the quilt holder has gone to bed, so I'll try for better pictures tomorrow.  Unless it's snowing. 

It's wool applique on cotton, and after I started quilting, I realized that I had never added the outer border!  I went this far, added the applique, put it aside for a couple of weeks, and forgot that it needed another border.  Maybe next time.

Most of what I"m working on are blocks for BOM's and mysteries, so I don't have a lot to show.  But I am making progress!  Now that retreat season is over, I hope to get a ton of quilting finished, and finish some small quilts.  I don't quilt or bind at retreat, so I get a backlog.

There is snow in our forecast for tomorrow, but since it's 11 pm and 49 degrees, I don't think the roads will be a problem tomorrow.  We had our first major snow of the season about 10 days ago, amounting to about 12 inches.  Lucky me - I got to shovel it!

The snow is all gone and yesterday was a beautiful day, so we went for our first wildflower hike.  We actually spent much of our time driving down dead end roads trying to get close to a very elusive flower that's found in only one area in the state.  The nearest parking we could find was a 4 mile walk one way, so we didn't tackle it.  Yet.  Maybe Sunday, armed with a new plan.  We did find a few flowers though, and were just happy to be outdoors with our cameras.  More flowers should be blooming soon.

Lesser periwinkle

common grape hyacinth

speedwell

bloodroot

I was especially happy to find the bloodroot, since it's usually finished blooming by the time we start hiking and looking.

Off to bed now.  Another very busy week on tap, and I need my beauty sleep.

Stitch on.............Sunny

more bloodroot

So this happened over the weekend...

Well, it's happened again.  My personal odometer rolled over another year with little fanfare over the weekend.  I have an eye infection and may or may not be highly contagious (but I probably am)  so I didn't leave the house all weekend.  But that gave me plenty of time for this!

There are ELEVEN small quilts in this pile to be quilted.    Two are charity quilts for a friend, two more are for another charity that I do some quilting for, and the rest are mine!  Actually three of mine are charity quilts from scraps, and I'll share them in a few days.  Sandwiching and basting are my      absolute least favorite part of quilting.  And HORRORS!!  I ran out of batting, and needed to piece the last one.  I think this calls for a shopping trip!  Tonight and tomorrow are all about the quilting.

Sadly, I'm supposed to be leaving for retreat early Wednesday morning, and I'm probably not going to be able to go.  I have a doctor appointment at 9am, and I'll have to see what he says.  I've already accepted the fact that I probably won't be going, but there isn't anything I can do about it, so I'll just stay home and sew all day!  I have my projects all prepped, so I should be able to get a lot done.  And I'll try not to whine too much.   :-)  I should have a ton of finished for OPAM this month.

Happy Stitching!   . . . . .   Sunny

Feb OPAM

I have been sewing like crazy since I returned from vacation, but I'm making blocks, not quilts.  I'm progressing on two old BOM's, two new BOM's, a BOW, RSC18, and a few other projects.  When I got out of bed early on the 28th, I knew there was nothing I could finish in time to have a finish for OPAM.  So I did what any sensible OPAMer would do - I started a new project.  Before I went to bed, I had a completed doll quilt. 

Now I have to confess, I already had a stack of pink hexies, from an exchange group that I belonged to a few years ago.  I had some sweet pink and white striped fabric that was gifted to me, just waiting to become backing and binding.  And I have 23 hexies left, so I'm going to add  two more to the pile, and make a larger baby quilt.  There's plenty of backing and binding fabric left, so it won't take long.  I probably would have made it today, but I was prepping and packing for a scrapbook retreat that starts tomorrow..  Retreat Season is in full swing!

At my quilt retreat a couple of weeks ago, I appliqued Dresden plates onto background squares, but I was one short for some reason, so I couldn't put it all together and add the borders.  DH and I took a road trip last Saturday to the store where I had purchased the background fabric in September, and they still had some left!!!  I was a very happy quilter. Of course, some other fabric joined it on the trip home.

I also pieced the top of my RSC17 quilt, worked on some machine applique, and started a project using a Cake Mix.  I should have some results to share soon. I have another quilt retreat in a couple of weeks, and maybe I should take these same projects back with me instead of starting more.  But I probably won't do the sensible thing, will I?

Stitch on............Sunny

Mid month

Time passes so quickly.  The month is now half over, but the time passed while we were vacationing in Florida. Ahhh..... two weeks of warm and sunny weather visiting friends and family in different places.  We spent time on the beach and on nature walks.  And I finally got my air boat ride in the Everglades!!  DH and I both love photography, so you know we each took hundreds of pictures. 

Not much sewing has happened, but since I got home, I made some purple blocks for RSC18,

and added a border for an online Mystery Quilt that I'm making.

Today was Club day at the LQS, and I picked up a couple of fat quarters for a future step, as we've been given a hint of what we'll need for Step 4. 

Early tomorrow morning, I leave for RETREAT!!  So I'll be off the grid for a few days.  The poor kitties were not happy when I pulled out a suitcase today, so they'll be relieved when they realize DH is staying home with them.

Happy Stitching!      Sunny

Wrapping up January

January has been a very productive month in my sewing room.  Partly because of my new white Featherweight.  I started piecing and just couldn't stop!! 

This past week was spent finishing the place mats for Meals on Wheels that I started last week.  I ended up with 14 in total.  Thirteen of them are very simple, with some nice fabric that was given to me last week. 

Number 14 was made from two leftover churn dash blocks which were made from leftover fabric from another project.  I should mention that all the place mats are rectangular, but the photos are taken from a bad angle.

The two quilts from this fabric are now quilted and bound, and will be handed off to charities next month.

The larger one was quilted with a simple all-over design, and on the smaller one I quilted in the ditch around each churn dash.  

This little guy was quilted and bound yesterday.  I started it at retreat back in November.  It's only about 12" square, so the quilting and binding didn't take long!

For the UFO Challenge for our small group, we don't actually have to FINISH a project,  but list some progress that we'd like to make.  This month we had to do our #2 item, which for me was to make 12 Farmers Wife blocks.  I started this quilt back in about 2012? with another blogger, and as often happens, we didn't make it very far.  I have a real penchant for starting sampler quilts and not following through.  

There are now 24 blocks made, and I'm not sure how far I'll go with this.  I might just make enough blocks to make a small quilt, or I might get ambitious and make all of the blocks.  My hope is that now that I've started again, I'll continue to make blocks.  Along with my older BOM's, maybe I'll just make blocks this year, and not worry about too many finishes for a few months.  

Retreat is coming up in about 3 weeks, and I've got my projects planned and prepped.  I usually start NEW things at retreat, but not this time!  Okay, well maybe one new start.  But it's from leftover fabric from another quilt, so does that count?

Wrapping up blue for RSC this week also.  I made two blocks for my pile, and some scraps of fabric came my way, and there may be enough new blues to make one more block tomorrow!

According to our local newspaper, the ice jam on the creek "melted peacefully away on Tuesday".  Of course I didn't go that day, so when I drove out there on Wednesday, I got a few pictures of a very muddy creek with log jams instead of ice jams!  The ice couldn't stand up to three days with temperatures near 60 degrees and then nearly an inch and a half of rain.

Monday afternoon

Wednesday afternoon

Wednesday

Happy Stitching!!!!       Sunny

FNSI, RSC18, BOM's

It looks like alphabet soup!  Do they still make that?  I remember eating it as a child, but didn't really care for it.

Friday night found me sewing along with the FNSI girls around the world.  If you click on the link, you can go see what others were working on.  You might get inspiration for a new project?  I made three little name badges.

I made one of these a couple of years ago to hang on my sewing machine while at retreat.  It replaced a post-it note that someone had slapped on the back of my machine, with my name misspelled.   Then I decided to make a few for friends, and now I've probably made about 45 or 50.  Earlier in the week, I had made 10, then ran across a note for 3 others that I had forgotten about.  I hope I'm done now.  My original one had binding on it, but that doesn't happen any more!

I made another blue block for RSC18.  I'm combining this with another project, and will be making one block every week this year. 

Vacation is coming up soon, so I'm trying to work ahead on as many projects as I can.  In my effort to complete two old BOM's, I will be making at least one block each month, much like they should have been several years ago.  I'm hoping that I'll actually be done long before the end of the year, but we'll see how that goes.
January and February American Beauty:

This quilt is made using Marti Michell templates, which terrified me when I attempted it earlier.  Now I know the secret, and it's much more enjoyable.

January and February Fundamentals:

I don't know why I didn't make this one.  There are four blocks per month, and it starts out very simple and gets progressively more intricate. 

I was given some fabric last week and much of it was not to my liking, but I thought it would make great place mats for Meals on Wheels.  Most of today was spent cutting tops, backs, and batting.  Three small quilts were also basted, and some hand stitching happened.  Quilting happening in the next day or two!!

Happy Stitching......Sunny

As of Saturday afternoon,, the ice jam is still holding, and is very very very slowly melting.  The risk of flooding is now deemed to be minimal, as the water level has been dropping.  I'll probably go check it one more time on Monday, and then resume my regular life.  LOL!