Whoop Whoop for a Great Week

     I have enjoyed several special days this week. Early in the week I continued the quilting on my blue and white Day Bee Mystery quilt by starting the free-motion.  I have lots more to do; however, I feel good about the progress.  It is a UFO from 2012 that has been waiting for quilting.

     The best was Wednesday. It was quilt day with my church group and it was my birthday. I was surprised with homemade chicken soup, a delicious pound cake and serenaded with Happy Birthday as Mary Ann played her accordion. We also accomplished a lot- sandwiched 3 quilts and helped each other play with block layout for 2 quilts on the design wall. Here are my sunflower blocks in a modern setting.  Others said I they understood what I was going for with my story.  I was thinking of a patch of sunflowers growing from ground toward the light.

MaryAnn finished this jellyroll quilt.  

Martha found this fun fabric for her quilt backing.  Can you read the message?

       Thursday was a special day as Jan and I learned and relearned how to do machine embroidery.  I had a Bernina 185 embroidery machine and used it until I burned it out about a year ago. I then bought a used Bernina 730 which I have used for sewing. Today was the first time I have used it for embroidery. Friend Jan who has the same machine came over for us to learn together and we did. There are new icons and buttons to learn how to use. I embroidered a simple design on a napkin

and Jan embroidered a couple of small designs on a crazy pieced block.

We had to resize, rotate, move the design in the hoop and back up the stitching of the design when thread broke. We both learned a lot and it was great to work together. We plan to get together again for another lesson.

Help with A Craft Puzzle

     Many quilting and crafting people may identify with the following story. A lady died and left pieces of unfinished craft projects without full directions. Some were brought to my house and I would like to find a craft project in which to use them. I hope someone has seen a similar craft project because I have no idea what they can be used for and hate to just throw them away.

She cut sets of 2 sizes of trapezoids out of lace using templates. There is more lace that matches.

Any ideas?

Have a great week and enjoy some time sewing and quilting.

Linking up with Whoop Whoop Friday.

Making Progress Quilting and Organizing

     Wednesday a friend came over and helped each other with quilting projects. I needed some ideas for the quilting motifs for my Day Bee Mystery UFO. Today I finally started the quilting in the ditch to stabilize.

     I have been trying to organize orphan blocks and projects in progress. I pulled out 6 Hugs and Kisses blocks that I made when I taught quilting classes for JoAnn Fabrics. I chose a couple more fabrics, made 6 more blocks and pieced this top. It will be a great quilt for the Children's Hospital.  Next I will search my stash for backing.

      I also made some progress on a modern improv quilt using leftover units from a friend's quilt project. I'll show pictures of that another week.

     I am happy ( “Whoop Whoop”) with progress made this week and found blocks.

Stay warm and dry and have a great weekend enjoying some time sewing and quilting.

Linking up with Whoop Whoop Friday.

Oh, Those Problem Reds

     I always pre-wash my fabrics, but sometimes that is not enough as I was reminded yesterday. I was just finishing a small UFO of a bird on a branch. I decided to quilt some accents to the bird and leaves. I used a water soluble marker to plan my stitching. When I dampened it to remove the marker, the red ran.  After Christmas I washed my table runner and it had a problem with red also.

     Solution: First, I soaked the pieces in the sink with OxiClean until the red runs were removed.

Next, I rinsed them in clean water and then rinsed them in water with a little Synthrapol to set the dye.

I have followed this process before and the problem was not repeated with that piece of fabric. I probably need to search my stash for any remaining pieces of the offending reds and rinse them in a bath with Synthrapol.

      Here in the finished small wall-hanging “Bird on a Branch”. It was saved from ruin, but I still had to deal with the problem.

The design comes from the book Tile Quilt Revival by Jones and Finley. In 2012 I saw a photo of an antique tile quilt and loved it enough that I bought the book and wanted to try the hand needle-turn applique technique. I soon found that needle-turn applique was not for me. At least I have one small finish for it.

     I took some time to make a couple of Valentine placemats for my GDs. The centers were originally made to be mug rugs.

     

      The next quilt was pieced by my artistic sister, Irene. She asked me to quilt it for her. Of course, it jumped to the front of the line. Here it is with the quilting finished. I will let her trim and bind.

Here is a close-up of some of the quilting I did for it.

Have a great week and enjoy some time sewing and quilting.