Smith Mountain Morning Finished

I am very happy to have my Smith Mountain Morning quilt completely done. This makes the 3rd completion for 2014.

I just love the blue and brown in this quilt.

Every scrap in this quilt is from my stash.

This quilt is from Bonnie Hunter's book "Scraps &Shirttails II"

I used the panto "Not Quite Paisley" from Willow Leaf Studio by Jodi Beamish. I have had this panto for quite some time but have not used it until now. It is a very dense panto and was very difficult for me. I seemed to make allot of mistakes but in the end it looks very good.

Until next time.

Slow Sunday Stitching-Daisy

I had really thought that I would not have Miss Daisy finished in time for Slow Sunday Stitching but last night I decided to pick her up and work a little bit on getting her closer to a finish.
I finished her hair and before I knew it I had her face and leaves done. I have mixed feelings about the color I chose for her leaves and I certainly had questions about French knots for her hair but in the end this is how she wanted to look.

I am also working on hand stitching the binding down on my Smith Mountain Morning quilt that I finished quilting and sewing the binding on yesterday. I love this quilt.

To link back to Slow Sunday Stitching click here.

I will talk some more later in the week.

Rainbow Scrap Challenge-2nd Post

I thought I was only going to do the 9-patch blocks and the string blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge but I discovered something this week that I decided to try.

I have heard of Craftsy for quite a while now and I know that Leah Day is a teacher on this site. On a blog I was reading this week it was noted that there was a free quilting class on Craftsy so I went to check it out. I read a bit about it and decided to sign up for three free classes. One of the classes was the 2013 BOM Craftsy piecing class and because these blocks are done by the month I decided it would be fun to combine this with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

These are the first two blocks. There are two blocks for each month.

These blocks finish at 12 inches. The first one is Asterisk.

The second one is Wonky Pound Sign.  The teacher shows these very precisely done but I had some trouble getting both of these blocks to line up exactly. I also am not used to making such large blocks. I have been doing Bonnie Hunter quilts for so long that any block bigger than 9 inches finished is a little strange to me.

I am still making progress on the Celtic Solstice mystery quilt from Bonnie Hunter. I am now putting the unit #5 together.

This is taking me quite some time to finish these units but I am enjoying the piecing. I am sewing half square triangles as leader enders between each unit.

I have 1 1/2 rows left of quilting on the Smith Mountain Morning quilt. I will hopefully finish this today and then I need to decide what I am going to use for the binding on this quilt. I want to have this quilt completely finished by next weekend and I will blog about it then and show some pictures of my finished quilt.

 To get back to the Rainbow Scrap Challenge click here.

New Blog Look

I have a new look for my blog. I would love to say it is my work but in truth it is my daughter in laws work. She has given my blog a whole new feel. I have a slide show of my quilt pictures, tabs at the top of my blog, a logo, and she is also designing me a few header/banners to change out as I want. I may change the background again but for the most part I am very happy with what is going on with this blog. I am so excited about these changes. Thank you Chelsi, you are the BEST!

I have also made some progress on the Celtic Solstice mystery quilt. I have finished the 4-patches for unit #4. This is slow progress but progress none the less. Yeah!

I am hoping to get some more time in the quil studio this week, possibly this afternoon.

I am making some progress with Miss Daisy but I still have more than half of her left to do. So maybe next week I will be able to show her off.

Take care and keep sewing!

Rainbow Scrap Challenge

I have been following Kathy Quilts for quite some time now and have really enjoyed her Slow Sunday Stitching posts. Along the way I have also noticed her Rainbow Scrap Challenge work.
I have wanted to get my scraps under control and I have done quite a bit in that direction since last spring when I was able to move into my new quilt studio. So I have decided to do the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.
For the month of January the color is blue and I have made two different blocks to go along with this challenge. I will be making 9-patches and also a string block.
I am not sure just how I will put together the 9-patches but I am going to use the string blocks to make "Basket Weave" from Bonnie Hunter's free patterns on her website Quiltville.
I  am making 10 blocks of each of these for each color of the month. I have finished my blocks for this month and I am excited to find out what color is for February. I think by making just the two different blocks and only 10 of each of them I will not get overwhelmed and quit in the middle of this challenge.
So here we go.

My scrap 2 inch squares from my drawers. So good to get these squares into blocks.

These are all from my strings and and some from my 1 1/2 inch drawer that I am so happy to be using.
Thank you Angela for helping us use up all of our scraps in such a fun way!
To get back to the Rainbow Scrap challenge please click here.

Smith Mountain Morning update

I am so excited that I have finally gotten the Smith Mountain Morning quilt loaded onto my HQ. I am happy that it will finally be finished. I am using the thread "Coconut" from Superior Threads for the quilting and I am using "Not Quite Paisley" panto from Willow Leaf Studio. I haven't used this panto before but I have had it for a couple of years. It is quite dense quilting and so this will take me some time to finish the quilting on this quilt. I think it will be worth it though and so I will keep pushing ahead.

I have also finally used my Amazon gift cards that my sons Luke and Eli gave to me for my birthday in September. I ordered some Jelly Rolls. I have never bought Jelly Rolls before but I think it will be fun to decide just what I want to make from these. They are all different so I will probably add fabric from my stash to go with each of these and then I will make 4 different quilts with them. The ones laid out came that way and the others are in the normal Jelly Roll way.

 This should be fun.

My husband and I are also planning a trip to Panquitch, UT in June for the Quilt Walk. There is a very interesting YouTube video online to watch about this. I will be taking some classes while I am there. This trip will be in conjunction with a fishing trip to Lake Powell. More on this later.
Talk to you later.

Slow Sunday Stitching-Miss Dahlia

I am going to link with Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching today.
I am quite happy because I finished with Miss Dahlia. It was a close call but I was determined that she needed to be done.
I was able to do quite a bit of work in the quilt studio Monday and Tuesday this week but Wednesday afternoon I crashed and took a nap. I had to be out quite a bit on Thursday and when I got home I was too tired to do anything at all.
Yesterday morning I felt good and didn't have any pressing chores so I worked on her and finished her up. Yeah!

I have already started on Miss Daisy and she will be a fun one to work on. I am doing a stitch that I haven't done for many years. I will let you see that stitch when I get her finished.

To get back to Kathy's post today click here.

Charity Quilts Done

I am very happy that I have finished two charity quilts. Never mind that they have been tops for months. They are done now and that is what is important.
This first one is the last of the 3 1/2 inch squares I put together this summer. I have made three of them now and they have cleaned out all of my pre-cut 3 1/2 squares that I had hanging out in a drawer for years. Yeah!

This next charity quilt was made from my 2 1/2 inch squares. I am happy to say that allot of these come from recycled shirts. Several are from my husband and my shirts. I really like the way this one turned out.

I have one more charity quilt that I am piecing on but it will not be done for a while. It is the tumbler quilt I started this summer with left overs from my double wedding quilt. I have cut out more pieces but I got bored with it and have not touched it for a few months now. I think it is about half done. It will be a twin size quilt when it is done.

Well, this is all for today.

Slow Stitching Sunday

I have decided to link up with Kathy's Quilts for the Slow Sunday Stitching that she hosts each week. She has truly inspired me to keep doing my embroidery and enjoy the journey as I go.
I am very slow in completing each flower but each one is showing improvement over the one before. There are 28 flowers in total and I am on number 8.
Here are the flowers I have completed.

Miss Azalea

Miss Camellia

Miss Carnation

Miss Chrysanthamum

Miss Columbine

Miss Crocus

Miss Canterbury Bell

Miss Daffodil

I am working on Miss Dahlia right now and will hopefully have her finished in a week. I will then post her on Slow Sunday Stitching.

Thanks Kathy for this great opportunity to post and also thanks for helping us to keep Slow Stitching.
To link back to Kathy's post click here.

Reflections & Goals

I have been reading many blogs over the year and have been very impressed with everyone's accomplishments over the last year. I looked at my completions over the last year and have been disappointed.
To my credit there has been many things going on in my life the entire year. Job hunting and interviews, health issues, moving our daughter and family to Utah from Wisconsin, allot of harvesting & bottling and a few other things thru out the year that have kept me very overwhelmed at times.
I have decided to make some commitments for the new year. First off I promised myself to do Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt. I have had a hard time keeping up because of health issues but I am determined to keep going. I have just completed the #2 unit.
I am linking up with Bonnie's Unit 2 link up.  I can't find a way to link a photo anywhere. So I won't be linking up with Bonnie. Oh well!

I have also been reading Kathy's Quilts and have been motivated to start embroidering on some flowers that I have had for over 40 years. I am enjoying this hand work very much and because of Kathy I will be linking up with her for Slow Sunday Stitching as often as I complete a new flower.

I have also been intrigued with the Rainbow Block Challenge that she has been doing all year and I want to link up with this challenge once a month. I will keep this very simple and will be doing 9 patches with my 2 inch squares bin that is very full. The web address is linked.

So this is what I have planned for the new year. I have made a list of all my projects that are in various stages including a couple that have not been started yet but have been in my mind for many years. I also want to do some improvements on this blog. I want to find out how to make tabs at the top of the blog and I want to be able to change my header often like I see on numerous different quilting blogs. I also want to start posting new posts twice a week instead of the weekly I have been doing.
I have allot of learning to do for this year.

Take care.