Postage Stamp Quilt Progress - June

Whew! Have I been busy, busy, busy!!  Jelly roll strips have been paired up, sewn together, and now I've got a LOT of cutting to do.  Well, to be truthful, I'm just one quilt behind... Let the pictures show you what I'm talking about...

This is what 240 strips look like - that's six jelly rolls, two per quilt.  Some of them are already paired and sewn, but not yet ironed open, and some are ironed.

After sewing up pairs of strips, then I had to sew two of those pairs together, plus a third strip of either a solid or a print.  This is from the 'Red, White & Bold' collection by Sandy Gervais, Moda Fabrics.

Here's a few pictures of some strip sets sewn together:

 

  

 

Two nights ago I'd hoped to finish sewing up the strip sets for the 'Dogwood Trail' quilt, but as I was getting the first two together, the sky was darkening.

 

Since I was sitting in the corner by two windows, I decided to turn off the sewing machine and start cutting rows out of 'Red, White & Bold'.

Last night I finished sewing up the strip sets for 'Dogwood Trail', and got them all ironed out, ready for cutting.  This fabric is also from Moda, from Sentimental Studios.  The colors are not really to my own liking, but I fell in love with the fabric design anyway.  Don't know why....

Matching up strip sets for 'Dogwood Trail'

Two quilts ready for cutting...

And finally, today I matched up the third quilt, 'A Morris Garden' (Barbara Brackman, Moda), into strip sets...

Now I'm off to go sew these up.  Then it's LOTS and LOTS of cutting.  Each strip set yields 17 rows, 16 strip sets per quilt, 3 quilts... 816 rows...  Here I come!!!

See you on the other side of all those rows!  Thanks for dropping by...

Postage Stamp Quilt Along

The NNC group is doing a postage stamp quilt along!!  Everybody has been busy cutting up squares of fabric, strips of fabric, or just taking the easy way out and buying two jelly rolls like me!!

Well... I'm not one to totally do things the easy way...  No, I'm making THREE postage stamp quilts!!  And yes, I'm using the jelly rolls for all three, whew!  Here's a photo of the jelly rolls for one of the quilts:

 

The jelly roll on the left is from the Red White and Bold Moda fabrics, about 4 or 5 years ago.  The roll on the right is Natural Bella Solids.

Here's another view of this funky fabric, just one of many crazy prints in the line:

This quilt is destined for a teenaged boy... Hopefully it will be funky enough for him...

I was wondering how I was going to keep three quilts separated so that I wouldn't sew the wrong strips together.  One day I was looking at the quilt rack in our bedroom, and guess what!  It works perfectly for... you got it!  My quilt strips!  See...

 

MW has given us a month to get all of our strips sewn together, and then to start cutting new strips...  Stay posted to the progress...

Thanks for dropping by!
Diane

Friendship Bag Exchange

Yep! Another exchange with the NNC group!!  This time it was a Friendship Bag exchange.

Mel and I were partners for this exchange, sending to each other.  When I saw the mail lady pull up at the end of the driveway, instead of right up to the mailbox, I knew that the package was from Mel.

Here are photos of what Mel sent to me:

 

See the bird on the bag??  This year MW added a 'challenge project', a bird, for the Anniversary Meet.  I have a feeling there are going to be a lot of birds going back and forth between members.  This one is the first!

The bag is reversible!!  Even the handles!!!  She is so clever!!

And look at all that was in the bag!!  Buttons, ribbon, brads, fabric, tiny clothespins, thing-a-majigs (how do I explain this one?!?  you use the thing-a-majig to pull string tighter, like what you might have on the string of a hat, to keep it from blowing away), and a small cross stitch key chain kit.  The white and black tin, to the left of the bag, has 2 smaller tins inside of it; they'll be great for tea, buttons, endless possibilities...

Mel, thank you so, so much for all the goodies!!!!

One of the requirements was that you had to make the bag (the other requirement was that you had to fill it!).  Now, this was totally new to me.  I fretted over what I was going to do, searched online for various patterns and tutorials, and finally settled on a version of a bag that Martha Stewart made (check out this tutorial:  http://www.marthastewart.com/254095/heart-felt-bag-1).  Instead of felt, though, I used fabric.  But I used her idea of an interfacing between the two fabrics...  However, my bag was definitely going to be without handles... sorry Mel!

One of my favorite colors is yellow, so I decided to theme everything I was sending to Mel around yellow.  It's like sending a bag of sunshine, no??  I went through all my yellow fabrics, and came up with something bright yellow with flowers.

Here are photos of the bag and goodies that I sent to Mel:

Even without handles it's not THAT bad looking...

And some sunshine goodies!

I do so enjoy these exchanges with the Needles 'n Crafts group!!  Check back in a couple of weeks for my posting on the Anniversary Meet; I'll be posting about what I made for the exchange gift, as well as that &@#* bird that MW chose as our challenge project.

Thanks for dropping by!!

January and February are done!!

Where has the time gone??  The first quarter of 2012 is almost past!  Whew! the time does fly!  And I haven't even started March yet!!

Huh!? What??  Do I have you confused yet??

Actually, I've been stitching on the Little House Needleworks monthly series that came out in 2010.  So far I've got January and February stitched up.  But I haven't even started on March! and my plans were to have each month stitched up before that month was done!

Here are pictures of January:

and February:

Sorry!  I'm NOT telling what I'm going to do with them, not just yet....

Okay, I'm off to go start on March....  Thanks for dropping by!

Needlework Retreat

Last weekend I attended a needlework retreat, Still Stitching with Susan, here in Myrtle Beach.  Susan is none other than Susan Greening Davis.  I've taken classes with her before, several years ago, when The 3 Needlewomen were teaching, and she was one of them.  But that's ancient history!

The teaching project for this retreat, worked up rather quickly, once the outside edge was finally stitched.  As you can see, I've still got to do some cutting and weaving, inside of my klostered/satin stitched areas.

We were given some wool felt and a button-print fabric to make a small bag with, and the small sampler will be attached to the wool felt.  For the larger stitched project, we were given another bag, already made.

I like the bag just as it is!  It is great for holding the fabric and threads for the project sampler.

No retreat would be complete without the chance to buy more stash, right?!!??  Well, I won't disappoint, lol.  Here are some pictures of just a few things that I purchased...

I bought 2 different bags, both gorgeous, and hand made!

I just love fat quarters!!!

It's hard to resist beaded scissor fobs!  And the scissors case is so easy to make!!

I was told to just cut a heart template, cut 2 pieces of fabric, put some batting between them, fold the heart in two and stitch up the sides and edges.  How easy is that??  Your fabric could be pieced, crazy quilted with stitches and lace, or any other way that you want it embellished...

I enjoyed myself at the retreat, and look forward to next year's chance to sit and stitch with friends.

Lots of other projects are in the making...

Thanks for coming by!

Diane

Handmade Christmas for Family

It's not always easy getting the right gift for family members for Christmas, is it?  No matter how well you know your parents, your sister, and others, it still doesn't make it any easier to get the right gift.

I live several states away from my family, so this year I got everybody the same thing: a gift card to Red Lobster.  I figured they could all go out to dinner for an evening together, and I told Mom to leave an empty chair at the table for me.

But, somehow a gift card seemed a bit too cold.  So, I cross stitched up an ornament with a pocket on the back to hold the gift card, for each person.

Here are some photos of my ornament gift card holders:

See the little soldiers under the tree??

Luckily I had some 'candy cane' fabric in my stash! 

I was amazed that I had so many Christmas fabrics in my stash to compliment the cross stitched motifs on the front of the ornaments...

I did this matching pair of ornaments for Mom and Dad.

All in all, they didn't turn out too bad.  I fretted over the finishing for weeks, and suddenly it seemed so easy to finish them up.  It took me a few nights of fending off the cats (Probie) while I hand-stitched the blanket stitch around the edges of each ornament.

Mom says that everybody raved over their ornament.

I've got how many days til next Christmas?!?!?

Thanks for dropping by!!

Mug Rugs and Miscellaneous

Can you believe it's been well over a month since I last blogged?!?  Truth be told, there's not been a lot to blog about, and I've been busy stitching up Christmas ornaments, now that the mug rugs have been completed.

Since the recipients, Nik and Sabariah, have received their mug rugs, I can now blog about them.

Nik LOVES all things pink!  So, there was no hesitation as to what color I was going to make her mug rug out of.  And her mug rug was to be of a 'Chinese' theme, so one of the fabrics has something similar to fans.

Lately the buzz over at our Needles n Crafts group has been about doing postage stamp quilts, so I decided to go with that for the design.

These are the fabrics that I'd bought, but didn't use all of them.  You can see the fans on the fabric next to last on the bottom right.

The pieced blocks are 1" plus seam allowance, if I remember correctly...

And the back of the mug rug...

I also included a Chinese tea cup, some fat quarters, and a couple of other goodies, but in my haste and excitement of packing it all up, well... I forgot to take pictures.  So, you'll have to wait for Nik's blog.

Sabariah is a traveller!  For her mug rug I chose a bit of a beach theme on one side, and the fabric on the back has a world map printed on it.

Don't you just want to put your bare feet into the ocean??

I wonder how many places on this map she's been to??  Her blogs of late have been all about her recent trip to Norway to see the Northern Lights!

I also added a few goodies in her box.

Here's a close up of the mug that I sent.  It's got a beach theme to match the rug.

I'll soon be attending the Seaside Stitchers retreat with Meg Shinall of the Flower Thread Company, so do check back in another week or so to read all about the retreat!

Thanks for stopping by!