Moving along!

For some reason, this week didn't have a lot planned so I've been able to get a fair amount of sewing done!  WOOHOO.

I did get my Splendid Sampler blocks done, although they are pretty easy...so far, anyway!  Remember that I'm doing them in red/white/blue/gold so I can coordinate these blocks with the Moda Blockheads II!  So far these blocks are also 6" finished, although it's hard to tell from the pictures.




Of course this one was a little more challenging, having to appliqué two different parts.  Sadly I was a bit lazy and didn't change the bobbin thread, hence the white stitches.  Oh well. I don't think it's  that bad.

I have finished getting the rows sewn for my Triangle Gatherings quilt.  Now I just need to sew them together.  I went today and found some fun border fabrics... in keeping with the different setting triangle fabrics, there will be 4 different border fabrics.  My friend Claire came over today and helped me with that idea! Tomorrow I'm hoping to have time to put the rows together and drop TWO quilts off to the LAQ nearby!!  

Still, then what?  We leave on Saturday for the cabin for 3 weeks... first week will be with family and then it's a bit of a sewing retreat for quilt show week... need to start planning for that!  Are you going to the Sisters quilt show July 14th?  I know my friend Lori posted about it already... we usually picnic in the park and would be delighted to meet up with anyone who will be there.  Let me know!

"more than a feeling"

There are certain songs that I love to sing (although usually only know a few lines) and the Boston song with the line "more than a feeling" really comes to mind to me now that I've FINISHED my hourglass quilt!  I'm so pleased--and I think it'll fit the bed well enough to not require another border on it.  This is the top on my grass (don't look at the brown spots--this is California, after all, where watering the grass is a big no-no)



and on the bed!  The colors look so different!  This is a great project to undertake.  I loved making it.  Never got sick of it!  My blocks are 3" finished and I used the companion angle ruler (and the Accuquilt) to cut the quarter-square triangles.  This is a Bonnie Hunter design.


I'm also happy to share the block I made for Moda's Blockheads II... This is block #3... I'm doing them in patriotic colors!


My plan is to also keep up with Pat Sloan's Splendid Sampler 2 and I'll do those in the same patriotic colors so I can combine the blocks into one quilt!

Next up:  back to my triangle gatherings quilt to get that top together... 
Then what??  It's such a great feeling to finish something but then you have to decide what you're going to work on next!!!  I hate that!!

Got some wool!

Thanks to the many suggestions I received (via email...thanks), I was able to find sources of wool and ordered the green and brown that I needed.  

Happily, they arrived really quickly, too.





The colors are gorgeous, I think, and are perfect for my trees and vines/leaves~!

My friend Claire came over yesterday to sew and she was finishing up a donation quilt.  She's become quite the modern quilter, using solids!  And of course all her quilts are her own designs!

Note of course that Max doesn't like being left out of anything!

I'm busy working on getting the last row of purple on my hourglass quilt... Hopefully I'll get it done this weekend.  Then I'll need to decide if I want to add a border to make it a bit larger...

Have a great weekend!

Need wool?

I'm finding that working on my little Primitive Gatherings blocks is requiring a better variety of greens and brown wools than I have in my stash so I went online (gasp!!!) to shop around.

Didn't have a lot of luck...

So, if you have ever bought wool online and were happy with the results, would you mind sharing the names/sites of where you shopped?? Please email to me:
randyiris@gmail.com (blogger is STILL not sending comments!)

Thanks...

Preschool graduation?!

Darling little Emma finished preschool on Friday and we didn't want to miss her "graduation"!!  Not sure we agree with the concept, although I will admit that I remember going to a preschool graduation for our 35 yr old daughter so it's not a new concept!  Here are the 3 darlings! [she's been at a Catholic preschool btw]



They did come back to our house for part of the weekend so I was able to get a little sewing done.  

I'm participating (actively this time!) in the Blockheads II and I finished the first two blocks, ON TIME!  I did the first one up at the cabin so was restricted by what I had and just used red/blue/gold.  Not a bad combination.  Not sure if I showed this to you last week... sorry for the repeat, if I did.





Once the kids left, I started working in earnest on completing the Primitive Gatherings Freebie from last summer.  I showed you some of my recent blocks and I'm done with the 12 so I started working on the setting.  WHEW...  It's a great looking quilt which I will be happy to hang when it's done.

I sewed the blocks into rows with spacers between each block, which will be filled with more appliqué.  I've got them ready for our next road trip back to the cabin in two weeks.

And I started working on the rows that go in between the appliqué.  In typical Primitive Gatherings fashion, the parts are SMALL... here is one row:


up close:

In case you're wondering, there are 19 quarter-square triangles that finish at all of 1"!!! YIKES...  I'm going to work on them little by little so I'll be ready to add them to the appliquéd rows.  And, by the way, that one house that had the crooked roof I showed you?  I think I'm going to redo the roof... the whole house looks like it's ready to collapse so I think I will redo it (and the chimney).  Won't take too long...

Hope everyone had a nice version of Father's Day.  We had our son over with his wife and darling Eli, who is just adorable.  But, I'll tell you, a grandchild from a daughter is entirely different than with your son!!  My daughter-in-law just started taking Eli to preschool and I was hoping to pick him up once a week (as I did with Ryan) so I'd get an hour or two with him alone... she won't agree since she's not working yet so she wants to pick him up every day... sheesh... vbg  What are you going to do??  They are coming up to the cabin in two weeks for July 4th week so I'll get a week with him (and two of the other grandkids, too) so that'll be great...

Library surprises

When I went to the local public library (I'm a big supporter of local libraries, as in REAL books!!), I was so pleasantly surprised to see an exhibit of paintings that depicted quilt patterns.  I thought you'd enjoy seeing them.  They were all for sale, too, but I'm not buying any!













Here is the description of the artist.

Painting surprises

Some friends asked me to join them at a "Sip & Paint" event at a local art gallery in Sunriver on Thursday evening.  We were to be painting a boat on water.  It was a lovely evening and we did have fun.  Here is the artist herself demonstrating the project:


You can see what we were supposed to be painting on the right side.  Here is my so-called finished project!  VBG. I've done these projects before and I relegate them to the garage!  Perfect place for them.


I walked around the gallery a little and found they were selling some interesting quilts.  One woman bought this one while I was there.  She lives in Sedona (Arizona) so it's a wonderful memory of her vacation here.

It's a great pictorial of some of the wonderful outdoor activities in this part of Oregon.  I also really liked this other one:


I don't love the colors but I love the pattern.  Curved piecing is one skill I have not mastered.  Some day!

I'm a Blockhead... no doubt about it

Have any of you participated in the Moda Blockheads quilt-along from last year?  They did a weekly block which wrapped up last year.  I printed out all the patterns but only got half a dozen done...and I may change my colors after all.  It's a great quilt and I do want to get to it.

Then they decided to do another round, starting this week, Blockheads II.  Well, of course I had to jump along.  Especially since I couldn't work on my triangle gatherings ( of which I did do all 98 blocks!) and I was procrastinating waiting to work on the hourglass quilt.

I can't believe how much time I spent playing with the different colors!  Since I'm at the cabin, my choice of colors was limited (very limited stash here, ahem) so I decided to go with red/blue/gold.  I clearly had too much time. VBG  Not only that but I pinned just about every seam, which is something I NEVER do!

This is the finished product.  It's amazing how just a little change in fabric can change the look! You may not notice but I did use a few of the triangle gatherings sashings that I obviously couldn't work into my not-yet-finished quilt.



Here are a couple other iterations!




I hope you agree on the one I finally stayed with.  There were others but I deleted the pictures right away... great tool being able to use my camera phone to see how one layout looks compared to another one!  And then POOF!  Delete!!

Back to the hourglass... I'm trying to think what use I can make with the extra 2" stripes of purple that I cut for the project.  I'm sure I cut too many!  Any suggestions?  Rail fence?  Strings? Log cabin?   Of course I need to first finish the quilt, right??!!




I'm definitely going to have to move it onto the floor because the design wall isn't large enough to put all the blocks on. VBG  It's coming along...

Poor planning

Well, not only did I not bring enough sashing fabric for my triangle gatherings quilt, but I clearly underestimated how many blocks I'd need to complete the quilt so I'm waaaay short of blocks.

This is how it's looking as far as I could get:



closer look:


It's very disappointing that I hadn't packed enough "supplies" since I have them all just sitting in a basket in California... GRRR.

We went to a local baseball game the other night and had a blast.  The team is called the Bend Elks.  The "stadium" was empty... maybe because it's akin to pre-season??  It's the kind of place that if a particular batter strikes out, they offer beer half off for the next 10 minutes! VBG
 

I'm now back to the hourglass quilt which I will hopefully finish this week!  I need two rows of purples all around and it should be finished...


It looks like blogger has fixed the glitch and I may be getting comments in my email again... WOOHOO

a little car sewing

We drove up yesterday to the cabin and I was able to finish two more blocks for the Primitive Gatherings Freebie from last summer.  I think I only have two or three more to do and then I can start to put them together. And start on this year's project, which will be coming very soon!


My houses are a little wonky and I really am not very good at sewing a stem stitch so I decided that my flowers would have 3 per stem.  I can make fairly decent french knots, and with variegated thread, it's great fun.

This one needs a little work;  the roof came out crooked.  UGH.  I"m sure I'll fix it after I've finished some others.  Kind of sick of it now, though.  But you can get an idea of how needy my wool applique is! This would have benefited from using a little glue stick to hold it in place but I didn't have it in the car last time.


I'm also continuing on my setting of some of my Triangle Gatherings blocks.  I was a bit harried getting packed since we had the kids and I only cut a small piece of the sashing fabric, rather than taking the entire piece.  So I don't think I brought enough with me to finish it.  Not sure if I'll try to find it in Bend or not.  I do have a 2 yd piece sitting in California.  GRRRR


It looks a little rumpled because it was packed in my bag to bring up to our cabin.

anyway, I do have other projects to work on so I think I'll go as far as I can with the sashing I brought along... 

Tonight we are going to the local baseball game which is made up of college kids.  The team is the Bend Elks and it should be great fun.  We are also planning to go to the rodeo in Sisters on Saturday.