Little Houses

 Scrolling through IG one day, I saw these cute little house blocks. They are bigger than my tiny house blocks, but simple and oh so cute. Perfect for using up some scraps. The ones in the picture were such soft colors that I fell in love. I'm sorry I didn't think to write down the owner of the post. It wasn't someone I normally follow, just a rabbit hole I fell into. Anyway, I made a bunch of blocks in some soft colors to start with.

I made 12 blocks into a little quilted piece that has colors that remind me of the early morning sky. Mu husband says it's very beachy.

This is obviously the back. Sometimes, Blogger re-orders my photos for me. Yeesh!

Anyway, this is the front. Pride month is almost here and I do love a good rainbow. And it has already been gifted! So win win.

Then I did some blue houses for daughter number 2 in shades of Carolina blue, and similar blue shades. Daughter number 1 suggested quilting in the words "nothing could be finer than to be in Carolina" so I did.And it turned out so cute!

Daughter number 1 had really taken up gardening since the pandemic and this year she bought herself a John Deere tractor mower. They have a very big yard, so this was a great purchase. Her houses are full of flowers, like greenhouses. and I just had to figure out how to make a tractor! The bits of chicken fabrics are a nod to the chickens she would like to have some day.

So, that is my collection of little house quilts. There may be more. I just might not be done with these cuties yet. See you soon.

Hand Work

Thought I would share some of the hand work I have been doing lately. I love having something to work on in the late afternoon and early evening while sitting with my hubby. Here are some of the recent projects.

I finished the embroidery on my chambray shirt. I put this cute little bee on the front pocket. I drew it freehand after looking at a bunch of different images on line.

And all these flowers across the yoke in the back were stitched over some loosely drawn designs, mostly for placement purposes. It's so soft and comfy. I love it!

Next, I have found a new embroidery pattern artist. She has her stuff available on Etsy at BeCo Productions. I bought several patterns that are delivered as PDF files. I printed them and traced them onto fabric to stitch.

 

She has several like this one of the cherries. You put it into a larger hoop to stitch it, and when you frame it, you put it into a smaller 6 inch hoop which causes the design to run off the edges. It looks pretty cool.

I added the yellow knots to the flowers. They just looked naked to me. I also stitched the leaves with a fish bone stitch instead of the straight stitch she indicated. These stitcheries are very accommodating in that way. I have two more I am working on, which I will share when they are done.

The last thing I have to share is another Keriki Press animal. This is one my daughter started and she got tired of the weaving for the jacket.

Here is the beaver sitting next to Fiesta Cat. He turned out adorable, but he was a beast to complete. He is a level 3 kit, and those are the hardest to do. They sure are cut though.

Thanks for dropping by. See you soon.

My Ta-Da Moment

 i don't usually use the phrase ta-da moment when referring to a finished project. Lucy, from Attic 24 uses that phrase for her finished crochet projects. Since that is exactly what this is, ant the pattern is hers, I felt it was appropriate. I have finally finished my Flora Granny Square blanket!

I started this project as a way to keep busy creatively during our move. I knew that any kind of hand work was the answer. After several false starts with using up leftover yarn from other projects, I landed on this one. I made the first squares in late August 2021.

Each granny square was made by choosing the colors for that one, then making it before moving on to the next one. I wanted to focus on, and enjoy each beautiful flower.

When I started the process, I had no idea how many I would make or what they would become.

Once I had about a dozen of them, I decided that my goal would be to make 100 of them and join them in 10x10 rows. I also decided to give each one another row of a neutral color yarn to bring them all together.

That worked really well. It calms things down a bit and you can see the individual blocks and colors. My original thought was to lay the whole thing out into an arrangement so the colors didn't bunch up, but in the end, I decided to just go rogue.

I grabbed whatever square was on top of the stack and just joined them up. And I find that I really don't care about the placement so much after all.

Lucy also has a great tutorial for Joining Granny Squares. I used that for putting it all together.

And since I got my second shingles vaccine yesterday and am feeling pretty puny, I used this happy little blanket to cover me up while I napped. So nice and just the right size too.

Hard to believe that just a couple of weeks ago they looked like this! So happy to have this project finished. Just one more hand project to go from before the move, and that is my Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt. The flowers are done, but now I have to make all the hexies it will take to join them together. Maybe when I feel better, but not today. 

Talk to you soon.

A Little More Hand Work

I'm sewing quite a bit right now.I have 3 quilts in progress. But hand work has my heart. I found these adorable little creations on Snuggly Monkey and just had to try one.

Thank you Blogger for re-ordering my pictures. Not worth the hassle to fix, but anyway, you get the idea.

These are by Kiriki Press out of Canada. You get everything you need in the kit to make a tiny hand held stuffie. You just need a six inch hoop and scissors.

There are 3 levels of stitchery. 1 being the easiest and 3 the most difficult. This is Fiesta Cat, she is a level 2. I have don tons of embroidery, so I didn't find this too difficult. Just read the directions carefully before you start.

And this is a picture that comes in the kit to show how the finished animal should look. You can Google Kiriki Press to find stockists near you. So. Much. Fun.

My last item for today is this: I bought a chambray shirt on line to embroider.

 

When I was a teenager (way back in the early 70's) we used to embroider flowers and such on our jeans and chambray shirts bought just for that purpose. I thought about it one day and just decided to jump in an do it. My skills have come a long way since then, and I am enjoying this. Can't wait to get it done so I can start wearing it!

Well, that's all for now. Talk to you soon.

Hoop It Up!

I love Bonnie Hunter. I so enjoy her blog Quiltville's Quips and Snips and the real and creative life she leads. It inspires me. She has been doing some hand quilting and showing it lately. Even though her business also involves a lot of long arm work, she still likes that cozy, slow stitch feeling too. It made me want to go back to my quilting roots.

Around 2010 I found the modern quilting movement on line. I learned how to machine quilt and I was hooked. It was so much faster, and the possibilities were endless. I pretty much gave up hand quilting. These days though, I find myself drawn back into the slower pace of hand work. I have been doing tons of embroidery and crochet. Now, I wanted to start hand quilting again. But not on a large quilt.

I am quilting along with Rachel at Stitched in Color on the Pas de Deux quilt this year. She showed a photo of some fabrics she had pulled for a project that included this Heather Ross print of the moths. I love that print and happened to have a little. I wanted to use it. So I chose several fabrics to go with it, wanting a spring colored vibe. I edited the colors and then pulled out my Tula Pink's 100 Modern Quilt Blocks, looking for ideas. I wanted that soft purple to be  focus of the piece, so I made 5 blocks identical. The other block I wanted to feature the supporting fabrics. But I didn't like this. Too much too much.

So I chose my favorite and settled on this. I added the green back in as a very narrow 1 inch border, and had just enough of the purple to make an outer border, which is wider at the top and bottom than the sides. I am very pleased with this.

Then pieced together a backing from some long held fabrics that weren't getting any use. I pulled out my old quilting hoop and hooped it up, after thread basting the layers. I had to kind of relearn that thread basting too. It's amazing what you forget.

And now, for however long it takes, I am going to hand quilt this piece. It is 24x27 inches, so not too big.

I am going to let it lead me, and show me how it wants to be quilted. I took the first few stitches yesterday, and let me tell you, my hand quilting needs work. But, the only way it gets better is to do it. Practice, practice, practice. So that's what I will be doing for awhile. And I couldn't be happier about it.

Talk to you soon.