This Week's Progress

Its been a productive and fun week in the hovel.  First, I finished this small snowball quilt top that I started sewing along with Temecula Quilt Co. 

Next, I reorganized my scraps.  I had been cutting/storing them in strips and squares by size, but I realized that I work more by color than by size.  I now have plastic drawers with assorted sized scraps by color, and it seems to be much easier for me to work this way. 

Yesterday a group of  us took a day trip to two shops in Northern California.  The first was Friends Around the Block Quilt Shop in Colusa.  It is housed in a refurbished old mortuary that looks like a chapel.  It is bright, airy, well organized and well stocked with a wide assortment of fabrics.  The people are delightful too.  It may be my new favorite shop.

Next we headed up I5 to the Quilt Corral in Willows.  Again, this shop had very helpful and friendly owners, although it was rather small.  No problem!  We all managed to support the local economy in Willows.

I found the border fabric and background fabric for two quilts that are in progress as well as a few orange fat quarters to use in a Halloween quilt (someday). 

Today I finished the gold round of EPP on Summer Circles.  Next up is dark/med. blue. 

I have many options for keeping busy this weekend--I hope you do too.  I'm linking to Confessions of a Fabric Addict.



A Finish!!

I actually finished a quilt including piecing, quilting, binding and EVEN A LABEL!!  Working with the l inch strips was such fun.  I never count pieces in my quilt but this one has 3,879 pieces.  The pattern is called Four by Four by Temecula Quilt Company.  I saw the quilt in person when I was in the shop and fell madly in love with it.  Just my style:  Reproduction fabrics and zillions of tiny, scrappy pieces.

It finishes 50 x 64 and I machine quilted an all over meander to let the piecing take center stage.


Meanwhile I've been working on Summer Circles.  I'm not really sure what color I'll do for the next concentric square, maybe blue.  Any suggestions?

Hand quilting has come to a standstill, as it is too hot to sit with a quilt in my lap.  No problem, I'm never at a loss for a hand project to work on.  We continue to have fire after fire here in our beautiful state.  Fortunately none in our area, but the smoke from all the fires collects in the central valley.  Not good for people with breathing problems. 

Sunday Stitching

String spider web quilt is in the hoop.  I'm doing a big huge stitch using pearl cotton.  Its going really quickly and I'm enjoying the folksy look. 

 

 

 

This is a big quilt (queen size) and its heavy from all the piecing.  I'd better work fast, because once the weather gets warm it will be too hot on my lap.  I'm linking to kathysquilts@blogspot.com for Slow Sunday Stitching,  Have a great Sunday everyone!

Design Wall Monday

The same projects are up on the design wall as the last time I posted, but they have grown to include more blocks.  I'm keeping up with Circa 2016 from Temecula Quilt Company, Westerning Women by Barbara Brackman, adding a row or two each week to the tumbler quilt, and I've completed 20 blocks in the Latimer Farms BOM. 

I recently finished hand quilting a quilt for a friend's retirement but I'll save that for another post. 

This Week in the Sewing Room

It has been a very productive week in the sewing room thanks to lots of wet weather.  I finished the last two blocks of my Stars in a Time Warp sew along with Barbara Brackman and got the top pieced together.  I love the simplicity of this setting, and thanks to Lori at  Humble Quilts, I  even know how I want to quilt it.  I learned so much from this journey through different antique fabrics.  I made all but one of the blocks from fabric in my collection.  I even had the setting and border fabric as well.  Two of the blocks didn't fit on the quilt top, so I will incorporate them into the back.

Today I'm working on Sunday Slow Stitching and will be linking to kathysquilts.blogspot.com.  I'd like to get this quilt out of the hoop by the end of the month and start on the Stars in a Time Warp.  We'll see.  Rushing the process takes away the joy, don't you think?

Lots of Slow Stitching

I've been doing tons of hand stitching for the past month.  Between binge watching episodes of Madmen and many hours of traveling by car, I've managed to finish a few things.  The first is my scrappy pink quilt.  I started hand quilting it in October and finished this week.  I did an overall Baptist fan in the center of the quilt and an old Amish design in the border.  I hope these photos capture the quilting.  I just love the texture and softness that hand quilting provides.  To me, there is nothing like it.

 

 

 

The second finish is a very old (over 10 years) quilt that was 2/3 quilted.  I don't know why I lost interest when I was so close to being finished (does that happen to you?)  It was the project I drew from my Jo Morton Yahoo group to finish this month.  I used a silk/poly blend batting that was heaven to quilt through.  Unfortunately, the pictures don't show that hand quilting very well.

 

 

I'm prepping some applique to take on the road and finishing up a mini quilt also.  Hopefully I'll have more to show next week.