Idaho Square Dance quilt progress

Hi everyone,

I hope you are all having a great weekend. 

I had a chance last night after work to lay out all my blocks for my Idaho Square Dance quilt designed by Bonnie K. Hunter.

I still have the corner units to make and the border.

But, I will be able to start sewing these blocks together as soon as I get the chance.

This is going to be a beautiful lap quilt.

I wanted to make it bigger, but I decided against it as I have other quilts I really want to make too. So, a lap quilt it will remain. This pattern is from Bonnie's latest book Addicted to Scraps. I love all of Bonnie's patterns and I really want to make several of the quilts from this book. I just love her scrappy style. 

Linking with

Oh Scrap!

Hand stitching kites

Hi everyone,

It's been another busy week for me. 

I haven't had time to do much sewing, but I continue to work on stuff a little bit at a time.

I'm almost done all the blocks for my Idaho square dance quilt. I will try to get a picture of the progress soon. 

I've also prepped some blue spool blocks for sewing as part of my July Rainbow Scrap Challenge. 

I have continued to work on my scrappy star blocks made from the kite shape. This is going to be a table runner for my formal dining table. I wanted something that reflected my scrappy style. I'm hand piecing these blocks. I'm not using papers or anything like that. I'm using a template that I trace around to cut all the pieces with scissors. Then I eyeball a 1/4 inch seam allowance as I hand stitch them together. It's very soothing to sew this way, and it's portable too. I just carry a ziplock bag with my supplies wherever I go. 

This is what I have sewn together so far. 

It has not been ironed yet, so it looks lumpy. But it's going to be gorgeous when it's all done. I haven't decided how long I'm going to make it yet. It will have at least 4 full stars, but I might make it five long. I'm not sure yet. 

I hope you like my scrappy start of my table runner. 

Linking with

So Scrappy

Oh Scrap!

What I have been working on....

Hi everyone, 

It's been super busy for me the last week. My mother-in-law moved in with us this week. It was a last minutes decision that was made on June 22. We had to pack and clean out her apartment, sell a bunch of stuff and get her set up at our house. She has not been well for a while now. So, I had a feeling this was going to happen soon. 

In between all this activity, I did give myself some me time to sew. A lot of the sewing was done at 4:00 am, because I couldn't sleep. I would get a bunch of sewing in before anyone else got up. It was a great stress reliever and allowed me to keep going during the day. 

First, I worked on my mini 3.5 inch spool blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2017. My goal for this project is to make 30 each month. But, I fell behind on some colours. But, I managed to make 30 yellow ones and 34 green ones. 

I also made some yellow plus blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2017. 

This weekend I decided to pull out a UFO to work on as well. I chose the Idaho Square Dance quilt by Bonnie K. Hunter. 

I had all the Idaho square dance blocks done. So I worked on the log cabin blocks. I got all those done. I just need to make the pieced setting triangle to make the centre of the quilt. 

I would have liked to lay these blocks out on the floor to take a picture. But my puppy thought it was a game and kept spreading the blocks everywhere. Oh well, next time. 

Well that's it for now. 
 
 
 

 

Yellow blocks, phone stand and some hand stitching!

Hi everyone,

I have had a very interesting month so far.

I've had lots of stuff going on.

First off, I did finish my yellow Arkansas Crossroads blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2017. I love making these blocks. They are easy to make, and I love finding the scraps to put them together.

Then, I decided I needed to have an iphone/ipad mini stand. So, I looked online at all the tutorials out there. I didn't want mine to be exactly like these tutorials. I just wanted to have an idea of what worked. I made up my own pattern. I wanted something that could be made quickly and with strips of fabric. This is what I came up with.

I made the big grey one first. This was my first prototype. It worked okay. I found that the ledge to hold the iPad wasn't long enough. The iPad would slip sometimes. This one was made with scraps of twill fabric so I didn't use any interfacing. Because this one is so large I used some left over batting scraps to stuff it, as well as crushed walnut shells. 

The second one I made was the little orange one. I used quilting cotton on this one, without interfacing. I made the ledge longer. This was better. I filled it only with crushed walnut shells. This was also better. But, it needed interfacing as the crushed walnut shells discolored the fabric and it was also too small for my iPhone SE, which is the same size as an iPhone 5s. It would slide to the side all the time.

So, finally I got it right. The middle one is made of quilting cotton that has been backed with a light interfacing. It has the longer ledge. It is filled with only crushed walnut shells which gives it nice weight to hold a phone or iPad mini. It can hold my husbands Samsung s7 phone well without worrying it will fall over. 

After trying all these out, I realized that the larger size would be perfect for a standard iPad, as long as it was filled completely with crushed walnut shells, or some weighted pellets. It needs the longer ledge to work properly. But other than that its good. 

Then, I was a lucky winner in a challenge by Lorna of  Sew Fresh Quilts to make quilts for Canada's big bee. I made this quilt to donate to the Ronald MacDonald House. She sent me this wonderful charm pack by Robert Kaufman. I haven't made anything with it yet, but I will. It's beautiful fabric. Thanks so much Lorna!!!

Laurel Canyon by Studio RK

Then, I went on vacation with my husband to Cuba for a week. We had a wonderful vacation. I love going to Cuba. The people there are so friendly, and the beaches are amazing. I brought some hand stitching with me. It was so interesting to sew there. The people of Cuba have not had access to many fabrics. They don't quilt much or at all. I would be sewing while sitting in the lobby bar of the resort and the servers would all stop to ask what I was doing. I would show them the hand stitching and pictures on my phone of some of the quilts that I have made. They were all amazed.

This is the hand stitching I've been doing.

I'm making these with a kite shape. I'm turning them into triangles, then diamonds, then stars.

I love how these are coming along. 

Well, I think that's enough for one post. LOL!!

Linking with:

So Scrappy RSC 2017