Sunday Stash #36-Catch Up Day

I know I haven't posted a Sunday Stash since January. I may not be sewing very much right now, but I still get new fabric occasionally. I haven't really wanted to photograph and post. I just am not feeling it. Well this week, I am going to fix that. It was 80 degrees here the other day, so I took some of my new stash outside and took photos and here we are. This represents a couple of months of purchases.

 This is my March color bundle from Southern Fabrics. I joined up for the year to get some of the great color bundles. So far we have had red, green and yellow. I believe you can join at any time, and stop at any time throughout the year.

 And, since yellow is my favorite color, this is my favorite month. Look at all that sunshine!! I feel a rainbow quilt in the future.

 This pretty piece is from my LQS. It is Cori Dantini's new line and thos flowers are so cute. I have a couple of panels from one of her past lines that I haven't made up yet, and thought this might help me to come up with a plan.

 I got these on a great sale from Quilt In A Day. All were less than $5 a yard. I like to buy a yard or two to put in my backings stash when I get a great sale.

One of my all time favorites from Sara Jane's Children at Play.

 I bought these lovelies from Monaluna. I thought they were so cute and perfect for a baby quilt maybe. I just had to have some mermaids!

I have been wanting some of this forever. This is Rae Hoekstra's line. I don't know why I waited, but I didn't want to miss out. So I grabbed these from Hawthorne Threads, on sale.

When they got here, I discovered how good these two lines look together. The wheels are turning, my friends. Have a great Easter Sunday. Linking up with Molli Sparkles.

Sunday Stash #7

It is getting harder to post stash pictures, since I am not buying any new fabric right now. I may come up MIA in the coming weeks, but I will be checking out everybody else's goodies and drooling over them.  Well, here we go:

 This is a collection of Sara Jane prints I have been loving. Her illustrations are beyond cute, and I have used some of her fabrics in projects. These are a bit girly, so for now, they are being saved. These are from Children at Play and Let's Pretend.

These little cuties are a Laurie Wisbrun line called Sitting Pretty. I loved her bird and chair prints, so the cats were an automatic yes for me.  Linking up with Sunday Stash this week at Mila and Cuatro.

Labor Day Sewing

It's been a busy weekend here and not too much time for sewing, but I did carve out a couple of hours yesterday and plan on more today.  My sisters-in-law came to visit.  They haven't been here in a long time, so of course we made lots of jokes about once in a blue moon, referring to Friday's full moon.  Lots of chatting and great food.  But I digress...on to the sewing.

I made another one of these cute wristlet pouches from Caroline at Trillium Designs:

 I made a couple for my daughter a while back and they are so handy and easy to sew, I knew I would make more.  Before I start sewing for the folks I want to gift them to, I wanted to make one for me.

 You know how that goes, right?  We get all caught up in making things for others, and we love doing it, but at some point we realize we have none of our own handmade quilts or other items.  Especially if it's a favorite pattern.

 I love how it fits my phone and my ID and credit card.  I daresay I could slip in a couple of bucks and my keys if needed.

 Here it is all closed up.  I love the Children at Play fabric and this is the last of my blue and red stripe from that line.  I am happy to have a little bit of it for my own.

 In my reading of blogs this weekend, I came across this.  I know we have all seen it, as it is not new, but I resisted until now.  I bought the pattern and can't wait to start pulling fabrics for it.  I might even do that today.

The last thing I did yesterday was to play with these pretties which I pulled a week or so ago.  They are all from my stash and the selvedges say some were printed in 2003.  I have been looking at them for a bit, waiting for inspiration to strike.  These are for the Leafs Me Happy block Blog Hop that is coming up in October.  Don't you just love fall?  The colors, the cooler temps...the yummy foods.  Okay, I have lots of sewing to cram in today.  Maybe I'll see you back here later this week.
Have a great Labor Day.

Another Summer Sewing Contest Entry

If you are looking for my Giveaway, go here.

I know...3 posts in 2 days.  Crazy huh?  But I wanted to get this quilt off my to do list anyway so I thought, why not enter it in the quilt division.  Ever since I made this quilt for baby B, I have promised V I would make a big boy version for him.  I had in mind to use the same fabrics for the airplanes.

 But instead of the stacked coins strip, I wanted just paper airplanes on it.  Love the look.

                         I tried to get them going in all different directions to make it fun.

And I quilted it with an all over loopy design to get the motion look that I was trying for.

                                           A close up of one of the planes.
And the best part?  While at my LQS on another mission, and taking a reluctant V along with me, he picked out this fabric.  I had checked out already and he saw this and said "Grammie, wouldn't this make a perfect blanket?" How could I resist?

 It's Busy Town by Richard Scarry.  It has all the characters and all the charm of his books.

 V loves looking at it.  I couldn't find Lowly Worm, but V found him right off and looked at me like I was nuts for missing it.

It makes the perfect quilt back for a kids quilt.  And he was so excited to get it, I didn't even get to wash it to make it crinkly and soft.  His momma will take care of that for me.
Have a great day.

Baby Quilts

I finished up the first two of what I'm sure will be many quilts for baby B.  I have discovered I love making baby quilts because they are so fast and easy to quilt and bind on the machine.  It's almost instant gratification.

 The fist is the Jack and Jenny quilt.  I fell in love with these little donkeys in Wellies from Laurie Wisbrun, available here.  I love her stuff and this one, I thought was great for a boy in this colorway.  It also comes in other colorways as well, like pink.  I have been wanting to try a zigzag pattern and Crazy Mom Quilts did an easy tutorial that doesn't use HSTs.  L-O-V-E it!!  I quilted in the ditch on the blue/grey side, using Bottom Line thread in the bobbin.

 This is the other side of the quilt.  The little Wellies and the Raindrop print in green and a yellow print from Connecting threads that I just love for its brightness.  Bound the edges in the green which works well on both sides, since the donkeys are wearing green and yellow Wellies.

 You can see the zigzag quilting from side A doesn't hinder the design on side B.  Side B was just a serendipitous happening with stripes that didn't work out for Side A.  I love it when that happens.

 Here is a closer look at the Jacks and Jennys marching up hill and down.  So cute!!

 The second quilt is one I saw on Diary of a Quilter blog.  It was made for market, from Children at Play fabrics.  I had trouble downloading the free pattern for the paper airplane, so I drew my own.  I love how this turned out.  This picture doesn't show the embroidered line that indicates the flight path of the airplane.  I added it after this was taken.  But I love this fabric line so much.

The back is some leftover fabric from curtains I did for V's room when they moved out last year.  It is an alphabet print by Sandy Gervais for Moda, called Lollipop, an older line I think.  The pictures were taken on my picnic table, my new favorite spot.  Now I just need to figure out how to keep my shadow out of the shot. Ha!  See you soon.

I think I can, I think I can

Sometimes I feel like that little engine and only if I keep "thinking I can" will I accomplish anything.  This is a tough work week for me and I am tired already, mentally as well as physically.  For my mental well being, I am trying to sew every spare minute I can.  So to that end, yesterday before I had to go to work, I got a couple of quilt tops finished.

The first one I got finished is my 36 Patch Quilt Along that I did with Crazy Mom Quilts this summer.  I am so glad to have it together and now I will begin piecing the back.  I already know what I want to do, so I just gotta do it.

The next one I finished is on my brother asked me to make for a special little girl on his wife's side of the family.  I had wanted to make a simple strip quilt, and that's how I started out.  But anyone who has quilted for awhile knows that sometimes a quilt wants what it wants and your best option it to go with it.  So this is what happened:

My strips needed a bit of something else, so I made some small strips going the other way and put them in.  This is good, I thought. I continued adding more strips and then WHAM! the quilt needed something else. So I gave it this:

Since there is a pinwheel print in it from Children at Play, it seemed to fit.  I like the scrapiness.  And then it seemed happy and fine with the progress.  I ended up with a thin green border and a larger pink border.  I measured all the leftover fabric and I think I have enough to piece the back without buying more fabric. YAY!

 I was also able to finish piecing these blocks and got the layout done.

And I did all of that in just about 3 hours before work.  So today when I got home, I pieced my October Birdie stitches block and started putting the hometown squares together.  Sewing soothes my mind and my soul somehow.  I can still think about problems, but they seem less urgent somehow and I feel calmer.

I hope you all get lots of sewing time this week so you can feel it too.
Have a great week.