Bloom Blocks & Baskets

 Since I picked up my Pfaff from the repair shop, I could get caught up on my Bloom Blocks for Lori Holt's Sew Along. I am not hand appliquéing them, but using my blanket stitch. I stitched up block 9 yesterday using some leftover scraps of gingham from my Butterfly Garden Quilt.

 I also stitched up all my other blocks I had prepped.

 I am trying to use bits from my scrap bins that are overflowing.

 The blocks are so cheerful and make me anxious for spring.

Speaking of spring, it was warm enough to sit outside and read my book in the sunshine yesterday. It was fun to enjoy the sun with the dogs. Today is supposed to be 10 degrees warmer and I picked up some steaks for grilling.

I did decide to make Pixie Baskets for all my fifth graders as end of the year presents. I dug into my stash and found material for all the basket exteriors. I will spend today cutting linings and batting for all 24 of them! Then, I can work on them gradually and get them all done before the end of May.

 I made all my units for the Scrap Dance Tango Mystery Quilt Along this week. I am making the lap size and still have many loose pieces awaiting the next instructions from Carole, for more info link from the button on the right side of my blog below my header.

Lori Holt posted a tutorial yesterday on how to make a Dresden Plate using her Bloom Templates. I made one for practice because I need to make some for my Down in the Garden Quilt. It was so easy! For Slow Sunday Stitching, I will work on more embroidery on Down in the Garden. Get inspired by other handwork here

http://kathysquilts.blogspot.com/2016/03/slow-sunday-stitching.html

Butterfly Garden Top

 My Butterfly Garden Quilt top is together! This is a design from Lori Holt's Quilty Fun book. I am teaching all the blocks as a BOM at my local fabric store. For April, we will be making the butterfly blocks, so I decided to make the butterfly block quilt featured in the book as an example for my class. It has 91 butterflies and 18 flowers.

 Here are some of the butterflies up close. I used navy Kona from my stash as the background. I had barely enough with a 2.5 inch strip leftover.

 I thought it would be easy to find a navy with a white dot for the borders as was shown in the book. Boy I was wrong, but I did find a small scale gingham that gives the same effect. Plus, I love gingham--I think it is perfect! The fabric that I used for the butterfly bodies was something I found in my mom's stash, but the local fabric store has more. I am thinking of picking that up for the backing. It is pretty good sized 59 x 70 inches. I think I am going to keep it and use it as a tablecloth for my dining room table--my Fiestaware will look perfect on it. I think I will quilt it on the longarm because of its size and I want to practice with a swirl design.

 Yesterday, I taught my class how to make the sewing baskets. This was my example--so simple and sweet.

 I am plugging away on my Down in the Garden block 1. I intend to make some more progress on it today for Slow Sunday Stitching
http://kathysquilts.blogspot.com/2016/03/slow-sunday-stitching-scissors.html

I am a huge Rachael Ray fan and subscribe to her magazine. I discovered a great economic and delicious recipe in her latest magazine--it is called a PBL (pineapple, bacon, lettuce) Sandwich. It has much more on it than just that--avocado, an egg, mayo, and I put pepper jack cheese too. My vegetarian daughter loved it minus the bacon and I also skipped cooking everything in bacon grease as the recipe called for. This was a big hit with everyone and will be a new go to at our house.

It is a sunny, spring-like day here. I hope to get out in the sunshine a little bit, but I also want to work on my Bloom blocks and get caught up with my Ugly Christmas Sweaters. So much to do and so little time--especially with losing an hour today!

Have a great week!

Butterfly Construction

 Anyone who has followed my blog knows I am a big Lori Holt fan. I have her 2016 calendar hanging in my sewing room, so when I switched over to March on Tuesday night and saw her butterfly quilt featured my wheels started spinning. I am teaching her Quilty Fun book as a BOM at my local fabric store and I have been trying to show my students some of the quilts featured in the book. For the month of March, we are making sewing baskets and they are pretty simple. In April, we are scheduled to make the butterflies. I decided to start on the Butterfly quilt. It has 91 butterflies in it. I had enough of the Kona navy background in my stash and plenty of brights for the butterflies and flowers. I started cutting!

I worked a bunch on these Friday night for FNwF

http://stitchingcubbyhole.blogspot.com/2016/03/fnwf.html

Here are my butterfly wings ready to be ironed.

 I shopped in my mom's stash--thanks Mom and found a perfect print for the butterfly bodies! The only thing I will need to buy will be a navy with white dots

and I should have this top made soon! 

I dropped my Pfaff off yesterday at our local sewing machine store for service and got some terrible news--they are closing in two weeks! I bought my machine there specifically because I could have it serviced locally. I begged the mechanic to add my machine to his queue--and he did. He is also going to look into opening his own repair shop locally--fingers crossed that will happen! Sometimes living in a rural area stinks...

 I managed to get my first birdhouse done for my Down in the Garden quilt this morning.

It was a good start for Slow Sunday Stitching. I will work on the flower and herb pots next. Check in here for more handwork inspiration

http://kathysquilts.blogspot.com/2016/03/slow-sunday-stitching-in-ditch.html

I am heading into my sewing room to make a bunch of cheerful butterflies on my Singer Featherweight and binge watch Damages on Netflix.

I have a long week ahead three late nights with parent/teacher conferences and a meeting, but we get Friday off. Have a great week!

Weekend Binging

This has been a weekend of binging for me. I started off on Friday night with tons of baking. My daughter's service club was having a bake sale on Saturday, so I made a double batch of blondies, a double batch of brownies, and a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup cheesecake. Fortunately, I did not binge eat any of them!

After my baking marathon, I started binge reading my new book What She Knew by Gilly MacMillan. I finished it this afternoon outside enjoying the sixty degrees and sunshine with my dogs. If you like thrillers, this should be on your to read list! I know it is available at Target because it is their latest book club pick and it was fabulous--all 500 pages.

On Saturday morning, I made my first Pixie Basket.  I had seen the tutorial last weekend, but I was too swamped with 15 hours of work paperwork to try one then. I used some scraps of some sunflower fabric and made this darling basket. Here is the free tutorial from Heidi at Fabric Mutt

http://fabricmutt.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-pixie-basket-tutorial.html

It was so easy and a great use of random batting scraps and fabrics. I decided to make more as they will be the perfect gift for Secretary's Day with some goodies in them.

 Between yesterday and today, I made 16 Pixie Baskets! I work at three schools and have 10 secretaries to show my appreciation to. I also need a little surprise for my BOM quilting students, so I made some extra. I am considering making some more for my fifth grade students as an end of the year gift. I usually make them monogrammed book covers, but these might be the gift this year. The only thing I bought was some twill tape for the little handles. Aren't they cheerful in my garden basket? I am going to dig into my Bonnie and Camille stash and make a couple more for myself next.

 Have you tried these amazing mechanical pencils yet? They have a thicker lead, so I do not break it with my hard writing. I was given two by a friend and had to get some more because they are awesome. I ordered some more on Amazon to put in the Secretary's Pixie Baskets. They were great for marking an embroidery design on fabric.

 This was the embroidery design I traced with them. This is the second one of these I have made. This one will be part of a retirement quilt for an amazing kindergarten teacher. I thought the sentiment and colors were fitting with her decades teaching.

I am going to continue my weekend of binging with an evening in front of the TV watching the Oscars and slow stitching my Down in the Garden Block 1.

http://kathysquilts.blogspot.com/2016/02/slow-sunday-stitching-life-is-beautiful.html

Enjoy your week!

Late to the Party!

 Lori Holt has another quilt along going on--Bloom. I am a huge fan of her designs and was not planning on joining in because it is appliqué and I am NOT a fan. Then, my sister sent me a set of the templates and I figured I could make the blocks my way--with Heat and Bond Iron-On Adhesive and the buttonhole stitch on my Pfaff machine with matching thread.

 I dug into my scrap bins and started pulling out bits and pieces for the blocks. I am not sure how I am going to set the blocks--I may make them into a couple of baby quilts.

 I started sewing the pieces down, but my buttonhole stitch on my Pfaff is skipping. I put in a new needle and cleaned it, but it continues to misbehave. FRUSTRATION! The last time it did this, I took it in for a tune-up and it was fine after that. A tune-up is not in my budget right now, so this project is likely to be set aside. I do have several machines, but this is the only one with the buttonhole stitch. I was already late to the party, but now I think I should have just stayed home! 

 Straight stitching is no problem, so I made my 34 units for the Scrap Dance Tango Quilt Along. There is still plenty of time to join in with Carole here

https://frommycarolinahome.wordpress.com/2016/01/08/scrap-dance-tango-mystery-quilt-2016/

Today is the only day I have done any quilting since last weekend--I am slaving over my computer with paperwork for my job, but the light at the end of the tunnel is near. I plan on watching some TV this evening and embroidering my Down in the Garden Block 1 for Slow Sunday Stitching. Check out how everyone else is relaxing with handwork here:

http://kathysquilts.blogspot.com

Happy Valentine's Day

 Happy Valentine's Day! My hubby and I are pretty low key about the whole thing. We are planning on going out to brunch and then taking an afternoon walk.  A perfect plan that leaves me lots of sewing time and him puttering time.

I made this mini embroidery quilt for my sister. It arrived yesterday just in time! The pattern was from Fort Worth Fabric Studio--they offer lots of free patterns and gorgeous fat quarter bundles

http://fortworthfabricstudio.blogspot.com/2016/01/plant-kindness-gather-love-stitchable.html

I need to contribute a block for a retirement quilt and I am planning on embroidering another one of these for it because I just love the message.

My sister just texted my that my niece who is a 5th grader is impressed with my embroidery skills, so I texted back I will give her some lessons next time I see her. That will be fun!

 After teaching my Quilty Fun BOM class yesterday, I got caught up on my Ugly Xmas Sweaters, These are so much fun! This pink and green one was the last one I made--I am not sure how Xmasy it is, but I am thinking of the colors in my Fiestaware dishes since this will be a tablecloth for my kitchen table.

 These blocks go together very quickly with Lorna's accurate directions.

 My goal for the Ugly Xmas Sweaters is to use my stash and avoid repeating fabrics. My quilt will have 16 blocks, but Lorna is giving instructions for more blocks than that. I am making all of them and figure the extras can go on the back. You can find details about this quilt along here

http://sewfreshquilts.blogspot.com/p/ugly-christmas-sweaters-qal.html

I finally got started on embroidering my Down in the Garden Block 1 last night. I embroider with perle cotton #8 and use Warm and White batting behind the fabric as a stabilizer. See my egg carton full of the colors I am using? The egg carton helps keep my perle cotton balls from turning into a tangled mess and makes them more easily transported. I hope to get a lot more done on this today for Slow Sunday Stitching

http://kathysquilts.blogspot.com/2016/02/slow-sunday-stitching.html

I will also spend some time at my machine working on the second clue for the Scrap Dance Tango Mystery

https://frommycarolinahome.wordpress.com/2016/01/08/scrap-dance-tango-mystery-quilt-2016/

Have a great week!

Snowball Fight Finish

 I am teaching a BOM this year using Lori Holt's Quilty Fun book. Our row this month is mittens. This is a table runner also featured in the book called Snowball Fight which is a combination  of mittens and snowball blocks. 

 I was able to find a big enough area of snow in my front yard for some pictures. We are finally having warmer weather, so the snow is melting quickly! I just quilted it with a cross hatch design. I really like the little flying geese border and the scrappy binding. I hope this will give my students some other ideas for their own projects.

 For January, everyone was making the cocoa cups. I promised a prize for anyone who got the cocoa mugs row done, so I made some small design boards using Lori Holt's tutorial 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nSZtoionpA

I made these design boards 10 x 10 inches. They each only took one 2.5 inch fabric strip, a scrap of Warm and White batting, and glue gun sticks. I bought foam core board at the dollar store and was able to make six this size from each board--very inexpensive, but a little time consuming. I wonder how many I will get to give away... When we met in January, we had eight in the class, but several more have enrolled since then. I made a dozen just in case everyone got their homework done.

 My sister sent me more blocks from Moda's Sample Block Shuffle. They arrived on Monday and I worked a little bit on them each evening this week. 

There are only two more blocks left! The blocks are going to be set on point with flying geese in the border. All the blocks have been made with Hello Darling fabrics and are six inches finished.

 One of our night custodians stopped me on Thursday and asked if I was a quilter. Usually, I only get asked that question if someone wants me to sew or make something for them, but this time was different. He told me that his mom has a quilting business and he had done some experimenting on one of her machines. He went and grabbed this! His mother's machine is not your typical long arm, but a custom made machine that is fully computerized and was well over $30,000. He made this large  thousand dollar bill quilt. It is amazing! He said it took over eight hours for the machine to quilt it. He used four different colors of thread and the machine works its way from the outside in.

It was over six feet long and about three feet wide.  He said the machine can convert just about any design into a quilting pattern. I might just have to go check it out!