Weekend Sewing

      I did so much yard work on Thursday and Friday, I was happy to sew Saturday and Sunday afternoon.
Instead of starting on a big UFO project, I just wanted to play a little with fabric.  A while back I cut and stitched a giant Lemoyne star and several small star halves.  I am not following a pattern and instead and trying out different layouts.  I decided to sew a red inner border for the giant star on-point.

I am still trying to figure out the size of the triangles needed for the corner star halves.  While that problem is stewing, I pulled out pastel crumbs to work with.  I started with about 6 blocks and now have 28 that will finish at 6 inches.  I like this brown fabric because the dots go with the pastel colors in the blocks.  It may become sashing.  

My favorite are the stars and hearts. 

 You can find directions for the Bonnie's   Maverick Stars here. I enjoy the easy piecing wonkiness of them. Here is the link for her crumb hearts.  

August 14 and 21, I am scheduled to teach my version of crumb piecing blocks at Midlands Tech-Harbison. You can find more info on it here.  

Paper-Piece Elvis

       A guild friend, Lynne, has started designing paper-piecing patterns for Fandom In Stitches.   Check out the site to download many wonderful free paper-pieced blocks.  Lynne asked me if I would test some of her patterns. My first assignment was 3 different Elvis 10 inch blocks.  Here are my results. 

 I used a fine pigma pen to draw his eyelashes.  His nose and ear are embroidered.

These are not easy blocks.  The cartoon Elvis was the easiest.

After some yard work I sewed the binding on a comfort quilt for GCQ.  I quilted it with my walking foot in a wavy grid because I wanted to show beginners what can be done with a walking foot.   

 Close up - hope you can see the wavy grid.

I took the rest of the day to relax.  Maybe tomorrow I will be ready to choose which UFO to work on next. 

Another Finish

   Today was the sew day for SQG.   We are each at a different stage of a variety of projects.  Joan finished piecing string blocks for a lap quilt.  I love her choice of colors.   Strings blocks are lots of fun. 

        I finished another lap quilt which makes 4 for this month.   This is my Crossroads Daylily quilt.  

I used a varigated blue thread and In the background I free-motion quilted a variety of leaves to include a fern which I really like. To move from one to another I stitched loops. This was my first time trying something like this.  One difficulty I had was trying to make sure that the quilting was balanced and that I did not leave big gaps. 

Two Finishes

    Even though Easter day was cloudy and cool, I enjoyed the day.  After church I sewed the binding on my second jelly roll quilt.  This one is for SQG.   The center jelly roll panel was quilted with the Echo Shortcut design from Leah Day.  I have used it on a couple of quilts before.  The outer border was meandered.

 Friday I finished the jelly roll quilt for GCQ.   As I showed in the last post the center jelly roll panel was quilted with the scroll flower design.   The outer border was meandered. 

       Now I am ready to move on to another project.  I have several UFOs waiting but I enjoy improvisational piecing and may spend a day or two piecing together small scraps or crumbs.   I am scheduled to teach a crumb piecing class for Midlands Tech in August.   I am inspired by  Victoria Findlay Wolfe's work and may just need to spend "15 minutes of play" with my scraps. Click the links to see some of her work. 

Guild Meeting and a UFO Finish

    Tuesday I enjoyed a great show of music and quilts from Cathy Miller, the Singing Quilter, and John Bunge.  Check out her website for more of her lovely quilts and patterns.  Here is one of her unbelievable hexie quilts.  The side of each hexie is 1/4 inch.

I fiinished the blue and white sampler quilt.

Now I am quilting on the jelly roll quilts. This first one is for GCQ.  I am using a new overall design.  There are a few awkward areas to fill but I like the look.

 Amy ( .freemotionquiltingadventures.blogspot.com ) calls this design a scroll flower.

Ready For Binding

      I finished quilting all the blue and white sample blocks, the border and tonight started hand sewing the binding down.  Here are photos of the FMQ on the last of the blocks.  The first 2 are fairly simple continuous designs.  It was difficult to come up with something different for these blocks.

 .

 The next is a different type of plume.  They look more like long fingers. 

 The next two have the more typical feathers.

 This last one is my first try at ferns which are stitched much like feathers except gentle S curves for the petals. 

Before I sat down to hand sew binding while watching TV, I sandwiched one of the jelly roll quilt tops so it is ready for quilting.  I would like to try a new overall design to quilt  it. 

More FMQ

    I have quilted 4 more blocks on the blue and white sampler trying out all types of FMQ designs.
  Here are the ones from today's progress.
        Simple continuous design -

 Leaves and flowers -

 This is the first time I have tried these repetitive lines.

 and a combination of continuous lines and plumes.

  I agreed to help test some paper-piecing patterns for a guild friend who has started designing for Fandom In Stitches.   I spent several hours working on my first today. When she says it is okay, I will show you the blocks.   

Back to FMQ

     The blue and white sampler quilt has been sitting on my sewing table waiting for more quilting and today was a great day for FMQ.  I want to try out a different design in each block.  I have planned most and so far I have finished 5.  Here is a look at them. The first is the simple continuous line design with a slight variation of the uneven wave.

 Next is a feather ring.

 This is the first time I have tried this large flower.  I have another quilt I hope to use it on.

 This a continuous design I saw demonstrated on Quilter's Newsletter Workshop .  .  .

 and more plumes.

Now I am ready for a break and some relaxing TV time. 

Quilting Groups

    We had a good group Tuesday for Day Bee at Dorothy's home.  One highlight of the meeting was show and tell by Carol.  She is working on applique blocks designed by Edyta Sitar .   They were beautiful and Carol is doing a great job.

   Today was sew day for church group and it was a productive day.  Martha organized our large pieces of fabric using the file system.  It is wonderful and we can see exactly what we have.  

 This is the same way I have started organizing my own stash and I love it.
      Bev appliqued a fun flower to her jelly roll top. Then she will add another border.

 The rest of us stayed busy working on various projects for an enjoyable day of work and fellowship.

Smocking

  Well, I have been persuaded to show my smocking progress on the Easter dress for this year.  It is not the best I have done but I hope it will be enjoyed.  I just have to bind under the arms and hem it.

  This is a busy week for quilting with guild day bee, church quilt group and a couple of classes are scheduled for JoAnn Fabrics so I should have some quilting and piecing to show soon.

No Quilting Going On

    The past few days my blue and white sampler sits partly quilted on my sewing table

while I deal with other things like taxes and computer issues. My desktop computer and laptop both have Windows XP for which Microsoft is discontinuing support so I decided to shop for a new laptop.
   The only fun thing I have spent time on is smocking the Easter dress for my oldest granddaughter.  Photos later.  I have dealt with a few frustrations making it ( I need to pay closer attention to directions) but it should be lovely.
Hope you are enjoying spring weather and still finding time for sewing/quilting projects.