Blogger's Quilt Festival

I have added my Swoon quilt to the Blogger's Quilt Festival's "scrappy" category.  This one was quilted by Ros Atwood.  Go check out the festival and choose your favorite!  Click here!

Several Finishes, WHOOT WHOOT!

 This is the last of the leftover bits and pieces from my cousin Tara's "Night and Day" quilt.  I made Coleman a whole quilt from the leftovers, and Tara a tablerunner to match her quilt and then Kathy made this for Coleman's wall.  Today she quilted it and I bound it and we will give it to him for his birthday in December.  Bug loved it!

I made the binding and Kathy attached it to Tobacco Road.  This was a tag team effort and we both count it as a finish!

 Swoon is also all bound!  I do need to get labels on these though...

 I also cut out about ten more zipper pouches from Patriots, Packers and comic fabric.  I plan to get on a roll with them next weekend.

Spoolin' Around

 I decided to just get to it and start sewing all my spools from Bonnie's Spoolin' Around challenge together.  I had more blue blocks than anything since I apparently REALLY like blue fabric and have now stopped buying it until I use what I have.  I sewed a blue spool into the upper right corner of almost ever four patch of these blocks and then I put them into rows.

 And it grew into this!  It isn't nearly as big as it feels like it should be.  I felt like I was sewing spools til the cows came home.  I haven't decided it I am adding a border or tucking it away til I feel like making more spools (the day may never come) so this is as far as it goes.  I only had one leftover spool, and one leftover that was a double.  I am hoping I don't have any doubles in it, but one or two could have snuck in.  There are seven rows of eight four patches.  I am so glad to check that off as mostly done because I am already working on Bonnie's next challenge!  I plan to only make a small version of that.  I decided I prefer leaders and enders with less steps.  The bow ties two years ago were perfect.  Not too complicated.  The spools were a little harder and this year's split nine patch is too much for me as a leader/ender.  I wind up just doing a block here and there on its own and never actually do it as a leader/ender.  Sort of defeats the purpose!

 I also picked out the not so great quilting in Broken Crockery and bound it.  Now I can enjoy it on the wall and have it no longer be a UFO.  I guess I am in the mood to finish things up!

Kathy quilted CJ's black. red and white wall hanging (leftovers from his night and day quilt) that has been waiting for a bit too, so I can cross that off the list too.  

Moth in the Window :)

All together I made six blocks today for Moth in the Window.  Kathy did a few too.  I am happy that Jo challenged us to work on a Bonnie quilt and so this one is coming along!

I also made another Wild and Goosey block and have a little stack of them going!

Bonnie Challenge 2013

Jo is hosting a weekly linky party in which folks can pick a Bonnie Hunter project that they have started (or need to start) and every Saturday they can link up and show the progress they are making.  This will keep us Bonnie lovers busy until her next mystery Celtic Solstice gets going the day after Thanksgiving.  If you have ever drooled along as people have sewn the Bonnie mystery, you need to get in on the fun this year.  Step by step directions with pictures and lots of us sewing along are happy to answer your questions if you have them!
But back to Jo's challenge...I have decided to keep working on my Moth in the Window which I just looked up on my blog and discovered the last time I worked on it was almost a year ago!  Where does the time go?  So this is what I have done so far:

I am not sure how many more blocks I need to make, but I will try to get one or two done each week so progress is happening and I have something to link up!
If you want to see all the other Bonnie quilts I have done and have in progress check out my Quiltville Parade Page!

Having Breakfast with Bonnie January 2013

Embroidery Love

Hello!  I am Andee over at The Modern Diary and as you know by now if you read Jane, she has started having guest bloggers for the love of hand embroidery every Monday.  This past summer, Jane asked for volunteers to try out her floss--Presencia threads with any embroidery design they wanted to feature on her blog between August and December of 2013.  I was up for the challenge and I was a happy girl when I got the beautiful threads in the mail!  It was so much fun picking out what I would embroider.  I spent quite awhile browsing through Pinterest and the web, and even bought a few books.  :)

You may recall I am brand new to embroidery.  I have done some redwork and bluework, but not much--and I several months ago I took a class over at the Phoenix Modern Quilt Guild in which I learned some basic embroidery stitches like these...

I then happily completed my first project which was this elephant pillow! 

Seriously it was fun surfing Pinterest and some websites to find the perfect little stitchery to use these threads on!  For Jane's challenge, I finally decided on this cute little gnome pattern!  I started working on it while on a road trip and then finished it up by the end of summer.  

I was having so much fun I decided to make Hug-Bot which was a freebie from Sublime Stitching too!

Christmas Through the Year--LOL

 Here are my 35th Ave. Kaleidoscope of Color blocks--which are really more of a sashing kind of unit.  One more month before we get the setting directions.

 We picked up my Featherweight from Mr. Happy Sew and Vac Saturday.  He does an amazing job and she is running like a dream.  He said it was one of the filthiest machines he has seen...umm guess I should not wait a year to bring it in! I do clean it regularly, but not the way he does.

 Here is what Kathy and I spent hours doing today!  We FINALLY (seriously I have had the stuff to make these for over a year, maybe closer to two years) got to making potato bags for the microwave.  I have already figured out which twelve folks on my Christmas list will be getting one.  I think my son is really going to like the skeleton one!  I needed a lot more potato fabric than I had, so I just used some of the other stuff in my stash.

 Here are Kathy's Crossroad (Rainbow BOM) blocks.  She paired them up and started quilting them.  She just drew lines on there like we had done to the potato bags.  They are looking good and she is going to sew them together and give it to a friend of hers.  We aren't sure if it will look weird with the seams showing on the back, but she says her friend will be happy with it so she is trying that out.  Works for me!  Oh and you can see my green and gold toes...GO PACK GO!  They won today, we did catch the game while sewing.

 I also made a binding for Swoon (thought I had already done it, but I hadn't!) and attached it.  I will get some pictures in the sun soon.  I decided to use one color for the binding because of the scrappy border.  It needed a frame.

 I also pieced a backing for Lazy Sunday and ironed it all nice and pretty for Ros.  Will be handing that one off next time I see her.  All in all, it was a very productive weekend!

Happy Day :)

I added my Easy Street quilt to the Fabric and Quilts Scrap Quilt Challenge 2013 on Flickr and won a gift certificate and coupon to Fabrics N Quilts!  The stack of fabrics below is what I got when I added a few bucks of my own.  Love the pretty colors in this line!  Thank you Jane!

Yesterday after work and tons of errands, we headed up to my mom's for the night.  We spent some time with the fast growing Colton!  Here I am trying to teach him some sign language.  He is such a snuggler, smiler and HAPPY baby.  

I met up with Ros and got back both my Swoon and my Tobacco Road quilts....more pics to come, but here is one she sent me.  I love them both!  I should note that both Kathy and I worked on Tobacco road and it was fun to tag team it!

Today was the PHXMQG Meeting.  We had our pillow swap and embellishment challenge.  Here are the gals that traded pillows.  Each one was incredibly unique and beautiful!

I turned my little embroidery project for Ben (my other favorite nephew and big brother to Colton) into a doorhanger.  He will get this for Christmas.

I am SWOONING again!

 Ros has done it again.  She quilted my Swoon and I can't wait to get it from her on Saturday!  Here are the pictures she posted.  I am absolutely loving it!

A Little Bit of Everything

 I worked early Friday morning and then we went and fed the ducks and geese.  This is something Kathy loves to do and I oblige her every year or so :)
When we got home I got right to sewing and made this little teapot.  I had a free pattern and thought it was paper piecing but wasn't numbered...when I actually looked at the tutorial I discovered it wasn't!  So I did some creative folding and tucking to make it sort of work.  I realized by then I should have used a dark background or a smaller print for my teapot so it would be easier to see.  It was fun to make anyway and it is hanging on my bulletin board, lol.

 

 I then found some actual paper piecing and made this tiny pineapple block--for no particular reason.

 Next I paper pieced four flying geese sections (pattern was from Angela for Hawaii Sunset geese, but at the time I didn't know how to paper piece so I kept it for future use!).  Can't show pics of that project just yet, but they will be coming soon :)

Then I spent some time organizing my bin of Eye Spy squares and hexies.  I cut a few more and then sewed one stack together.  It isn't big enough yet--needs more variety so back in the bin it went til later.

 Paper pieced another Wild and Goosey block.  Finally starting to seem like a decent amount on the design wall!  It is all Bonnie Hunter of quiltville on my wall!

 Then I traced out stitched up this freebie from Sublime Stitching for my nephew Ben.  It went really quickly!

So far today watching the Packers.  I did bike while they were on and realized that I haven't updated my trying to eat right and more more in a long time!  I am still trying to do that and I have lost 32 pounds since I started June 1st of this year.  I have a long way to go but they say slow and steady wins the race...:)