My Monday Sewing

I usually am off from work on Sunday and Monday and those are the two days I get to do the most sewing.  I thought I would show you what I worked on this week.  Next week I am on vacation and I don't plan to go anywhere.  That means lots of sewing time for me!

So here is what I am working on:

 This is the first green block for August in the Sunday Morning Quilts Bee.  I took out my green scrap bin, and when I started pulling scraps, I decided that there were two types: soft, mellow green and modern, bright green.  So I decided they would look better if I made two different blocks.  I like each one for its self.

 Here is the bright green block...you can see how different it looks and feels from the other one.

 This is a summer weight quilt I am working on.  It is made with Lawn fabric from Connecting Threads.  Crazy Mom Quilts made a king size quilt using this same fabric.  Mine will be much smaller.  The fabric is so soft.  I love it.

I finally cut into my Summersville jelly roll.  I knew I wanted to do some 2.5 inch squares, but I hadn't figured out a layout.  Now, thanks to Camille, I know what to do.  I just need to get some Kona White for the sashing, but I started sewing the strips together.

I also have 4 quilt tops and their backs waiting to be quilted next week.  I am going to allow myself to buy batting for them.  It's not fabric after all and I don't have a stash of it.  We will see how far I get.  I will let you know.

If you are interested in my scrap giveaway, go here.
Have a great week.

Wanna Peek in My Scrap Bins?

Warning: picture heavy post!
When I mentioned that I was using my stash to make stuff this summer, my sister asked me about it.  What were my favorites, did I find things that I'd forgotten etc.  I was sewing for my Sunday Morning Quilts Bee yesterday and had my scraps out.  These really got me to thinking and reminiscing more than the rest of my stash.  They are so much a part of my quilting journey.  So I thought you'd like a peak.

First up, I found some squares in the yellow bin.  Leftovers from this quilt, made in 2001.  I guess I made too many to start.

 This quilt was on my bed for about 9 years before I made a new one.  It lives in the spare bedroom now.

 I found 11 little beginnings of log cabin blocks in the yellow scrap bin.  I made this new mug rug for my desk.

And I made it double sided, just changing the orientation of the blocks a bit.  I really like it.

 Doesn't it look good here.  My tool cup is an old favorite coffee cup that has a glued on handle.  Can't trust it with hot coffee anymore.

 Here are the three remaining mini blocks.  I am thinking about a small wall hanging with them.

 This is a picture of my scrap bins on the shelves.  I started sorting them about 4-5 years ago, by color.  I am happy I did this before Cheryl and Amanda Jean's book came out.  I feel like I had a bit of a head start on sorting and using.  I started with bins for the colors I had the most of, and added bins as my sorting continued.  There are a couple of small bins that are still a hodge podge and a couple (blue and yellow) that are over flowing.

 Let's look inside, shall we?  See, lots of scraps in all shapes and sizes.  Some go back to my first few quilts.  I even have one small piece of fabric from my very first quilt.  I found some pieces from quilts I have given away too.  It makes me smile to remember them.  I even have pieces I have no idea what they were from!

        Here is a closer look at yellow and red/pink.  I haven't divided them up yet.

 Here are blue and green.  I had green out yesterday to work on my August slab block for Sunday Morning Quilts Bee.  I will post about that tomorrow.

 Orange...my smallest collection of all.  I don't use much, only buy it for specific projects.  I don't guess it calls to me often.

 Creams and whites, tone on tone whites.  Some low volume fabrics, although that term is new to me.

 These are my holiday scraps, Christmas, Halloween etc.  Not too many in here either.

This bin is strictly strips, ends of jelly rolls not used yet.  After you unroll them, you can't always keep them on the shelf.  I also have a small bin of kids fabric scraps.  So that's my scrap stash.

If you read this far, I have a giveaway for you.  If you are reading the book, Sunday Morning Quilts, and you are trying to make some of those beautiful projects and find yourself short on scraps, I am going to stuff a flat rate envelope with an assortment of my scraps.  I will mail it to you.  All you have to do is leave me a comment here and tell me which scrap quilt in the book is your favorite one.  I will leave the give away open for one week.  Random will draw a winner.
Have a great day.

Spoolin' Around

Spent a bit of time working on my Spools quilt top today.  I like how it's coming along.  It's a very easy pattern and so easy to get into the zone and just sew.

 I had to do three complete spools to see how they were going to look.  I need that gratification to keep me going sometimes.  The "thread" is Strawberry Fields by Fig Tree.  For the spool ends I am using 3 different fabrics, in keeping with using my stash: grey dots from Vintage Modern, grey stripe from Sunkissed, and grey tiny zigzag from Reunion.

 Chain piecing is definitely the way to go with this pattern. It's so easy to do too.  It also helps me to remember which way to orient the corner pieces and stitch them correctly.

 Here is a bit of trimmings from the spool ends.  I think these triangles are way too small to keep for any reason at all.  Into the trash they will go.

And neatly put away until next time, there are far fewer pieces in the project box now.  I love when I can see the progress.  Have a great weekend.

Pillows!

I tried to post this yesterday, but blogger was having the hiccups.  Then in the afternoon a big storm took our power for 8 hours.  Let's try again.

In my quest to sew from my stash this summer, and since the dog chewed on one of the pillow covers I made for my daughter, I had to make new ones.  I finally got my hands on some of those cute typewriters a while ago and my daughter loved them.  So a plan was born.  Here's what she sketched and I sewed:

 She had three, we decided to make 5.  I am finally getting proficient at putting in zippers.

                                          There are two of this one, to anchor the whole lot.

                                                    I love all the colors in this one.

                                                   Another favorite, I guess I love them all.

 I made this to use up the typewriters at the ends which weren't whole.  I'm not wasting one of those babies!

And here they are in their new home.  They look so pretty and give a real punch of color to the room.
Hope you have a great day.

Sunday Morning Quilts

If you've been out of touch, you don't know about Sunday Morning Quilts.  It is a great book by Amanda Jean Nyberg and Cheryl Arkison.  There are lots of things going on around blog world that center on this book.  Amanda and Cheryl have invited anyone who has made something from the book to link up.  So here is my first project.  I say first because I know there will be many more.

 These are my first two ticker tape mini quilts.  Amanda Jean did a great big one in all colors.  I decided to do a series of smaller ones, each in a single color.  When I am done, I am going to arrange them in a collection in my bedroom.  For now, though, they live in my sewing room on a little clothes line.

Here is the third one.  I am truly using scraps and the background was a rectangular piece of white I happened to have.  So they will not all be the same size and shape, I guess.

I also have a Flickr group doing a Bee/swap of slabs from the book.  I hope to have future rounds of this Bee to make some of the other projects from the book.  Go take a look.

Have a great week.  I am off to run errands now.

Spools

 So I mentioned in my last post that I cannot afford to buy any fabric.  I have been so good for the last 3 weeks.  If you knew me, you would see what an accomplishment this is.  I have been wanting to do the Spools pattern by Camille Roskelly.  I bought the pattern awhile ago.  So since there is no fabric purchasing, it was off to the stash.  I found a lovely fat eight bundle of Strawberry Fields by Fig Tree Quilts.  Perfect.  I had a couple of small-ish pieces of Kona White.  Okay.  Still need more for sashing, but that can wait.  Found 3 different greys to use for the spools.

 So I started cutting all that I had.  I even had a nice plastic project bin that was recently vacated by Swoon.  So now I have all the pieces cut except for sashing, but that is so far off right now, I will find some way to get it later.

 I started sewing all my spools together yesterday.  I made many different combos.  The light isn't great here and for some reason, the flash wouldn't flash.  But here they are all stitched and pressed.

I had just enough time to sew on a couple of white strips.  As I sit here looking, I am noticing that I put two on each spool.  I'm not sure if that's right or not.  Oh well, I will look at the pattern and see before my next sewing session.








The other quick, well, relatively quick thing I made yesterday was a new cover for my sewing machine.  I saw one on Clover and Violet and was inspired to make one of my own.  I had a few scraps from a set of pillow covers I am making for my daughter, and I wanted to make them into something for me.  So this is what I did:

I made a little mosaic of the scraps and appliqued it onto some fabric.  This was a one yard piece of fabric I have had for years...Michael Miller...and was going to put it in my get rid of pile.  I just free wheeled the whole thing based on what I had seen.  Pretty simple really.  And the best part is I love it, even the green.  So it was a good day.
Hope you are having a great day too.

Whirlwind

A whirlwind of activity, that was my weekend.  This was the weekend we were going to start tearing down our rotting back deck.  Before you can build, you must demolish.  So a plan was made.  My part was to get as much sewing done as possible before Sunday so I could be available for whatever was needed.  Gonna be a lot of pictures here folks, so bear with me if you will.

Remember this from last summer?  Crazy Mom Quilts 36 patch quilt along?  Well I finally got a back pieced for it.  It was slow going with so many other projects to be done.  But this summer I am as poor as a church mouse with regard to funding my quilting, so I have been reinspired to finish old projects and use my stash for everything else.

 I had pieced the left section from leftover strips from the quilt top.  Then I stopped because I ran out.

So I just grabbed a big chunk of fabric (2 yards) that I had used a little on the front and put it together.  And you know, I kind of like it.  That amazes me.

 Then I had to make some more of these cutie things.  My daughter's response when I sent her a picture?  "I think I just had a cuteness stroke!" LOL!

                                                  They are for this little cutie pie!

Now, onto the real work of the weekend.  It was so humid and hot.  I was a water girl for the guys.

 Here they are just getting started with pry bars, hammers and sledges.  The sun is high!

 After a bit, they decided it would be quicker to use a circle saw and cut the decking boards and then remove them.  This really sped up the process.

                          Middle of the afternoon and almost done with the decking boards.

 A few nails still to remove, and a couple of boards.  The joists are going to have to wait until next weekend.  We needed to clean up.

 Just a few of the nails they pulled.  After everyone showered, we lit the grill and made some burgers and corn and hotdogs.  We ate outside at the picnic table and even had brownies and mini ice cream sandwiches for dessert.

Just before the party broke up, I got this picture of my three guys, all together for the first time.
Dirty, and tired, but happy.  Have a great day!

Red, White and Blue...My Turn!

It is my turn on the Fun red, white and blue blog hop.  I hope you have been enjoying all the great blocks along the way.  I didn't realize how much I loved them until I started seeing them.  My first thought was to make stars.  But everyone makes stars.  So I made a couple of quick pinwheels.

 I made the blocks using HSTs and so the stripes came out in two different directions.  I loved them both.

 Then I took a picture of them together and I thought "they need to be a table runner.  Do I have any white?"  And I looked and yes I did.  Se this is what I came up with.

 And I quilted it with free form stars all around and in the ditch on the pinwheels them selves.  More of the stripes (which I actually found in with my Christmas fabric) for the binding and Voila!

Now go on and take a look at all the wonderful other block blog hop posts for today.  Enjoy!
July 11th  Nancy R

North Hills Quilter

Sunshine Girl

Grammie Q
knitnoid

Thanks to Jane and Madame Samm!

 Edited to add: Thank you to everyone who stopped by to visit.  This was a great blog hop.  I am sorry I did not have the time to reply to everyone individually.  I hope I get better at that, but time gets away from me sometimes.  I am glad my blocks/table runner was so well received.