Another Border on the Rainbow

It is nothing super earthshaking. It is a border. It is separation from what is next and while I have my concept of what is next it is only that. I must take the concept now and free form it into what I can see in my mind's eye. For now the rainbow quilt is this far along. I like how the V and Co Simply Color ombre from Moda  gave the deeper colors in the inner border and the lighter on the outer border.This fabric line is absolutely on of my favorites. Off to see if bluebirds will fly...

Morning Coffee View and Discovery

Each morning I can I sit on my patio to sip my coffee and contemplate the world. My world from the patio gives visual as well as audible hits of what is out there. Miss Kitty (I know he is a he but all my cats are called Miss Kitty) sits with me and contemplates the world too.  Today the baby squirrels were going wild in the trees chasing each other, talking to each other and making the other fall out of the tree coming crashing down only to run back up and start the chase again. The crows were very loud calling to each other, the male red bird was chirping "all is safe at the feeder" to his mate and she came to eat while he stood guard. Rain has been going on for a week here so all is very green and foliage abundant. My and Miss Kitty views:

Kitty and me bringing in the day

 Then...looking across I see a white dot in the railroad ties and walking over I discover the most beautiful, delicate white mushroom...Wow, where does a white mushroom come from?

Really, really cool. 
Have a great weekend and my you find your magical mushroom. I am off to the sewing studio now to find some magic for sure. 

Rainbow Border 3 - Geese Flying

My Modern Quilt Guild round robin quilt got its third border. Flying Geese!  Flying geese are not my favorite thing to make but I love how they look. I knew I wanted a border with them but could not see myself making a gob of them to ring around as a border let alone with any of the methods that never seem to work for me. Paper piecing seemed my best bet so off to the internet I go and found a wonderful pattern  by Patrice Trnka Adams and it fit the need perfectly. http://www.forestquilting.com/paperpiecing_free/paperpiecing_free_pdfs/flying_geese_placemat.pdf
I made each color run and then decided to keep it simple by using 4 of the runs.

Second border "color trail"

Testing the geese flight

Geese Flight now in orbit

I like the simple and easy flow and I'm glad I did not try and go overboard on the amount of geese. The clean lines make me happy. Wonder what I will put next? Borders are harder than one would think...hmmm...

Finished UFO

Last blog was the Bag It Tag It of a few UFOs to take to the girl's retreat weekend. I always over estimate how much I will get done so the bags yielded only one finished. The opening of the bag is the easy part and then the hard part of remembering what I intended to so with the contents. Had to get my mind wrapped around the vision from over a year ago and what I thought I might have when finished.

 I had seven star blocks from our Modern Quilt Guild block of the month I have blogged about in 2014. I had a crisscross pattern I thought gave a good grid. stars 12.5 unfinished/grid blocks 12.0 unfinished as lay out began it was the coping strips that had to be set in and everything fit somewhere. This is always my favorite part of the process when I have to use math and visual to get a finished product. Fun for sure. After much setting, sewing, not liking, ripping, setting, sewing and finally happy with the look the top is complete. Quilting will be fun as it gives a lot of lines to play with.

looks wavy at top but that is design board waffle. It is 47x60 and will be fun to finish. Now to open the next bag of UFO delight. Hope each of you reading this have a fun and fabulous UFO bag to open.

Bag IT Tag IT Ready to Sew

Putting it all in the bag makes an easy pull for those UFOs in my studio. Ok I must confess that this was part of my studio clean up finds. Cleaning the fabric cubes some UFOs were hidden in the back but at least they were with all the fabric and pattern. I can get distracted by another project and they must run and hide from me? Note to UFOs, you can run but you can't hide forever. Here are two I found hiding. Now I know why I saved those zipper bags from the sheets I bought, they are so wonderful with a pocket in the front of the bag to put the pattern and super roomy. These two are going with me this weekend for the girl's quilting retreat weekend. I now have other bags created to put cut ready to sew charity project pillow cases; cut ready to sew Lutheran Worth Relief (LWR) school bags;  LWR cut and ready to sew 10.5" blocks for quilt tops; and who know what else will need a bag.  Organization is a wonderful thing (as we all know) and organized takes less space in the cube... just a little more time to get the organization started and continued. It's a good thing.

This was started for a paint chip challenge...orange

 

 

This was selected to use some 12" star BOM 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Catching Threads

A little thread catcher is always handy so I made some to have as a quick gift for friends.  I then started thinking of all the things one could "catch" and came up with this list

• Pistachio shells as you eat them
• Put on your desk to hold Staples that you remove from papers with the staples puller
• Put in cup holder and catch Starbucks to go cup plastic plugs
• Put by machine to catch binder clips as you take them off

The pattern was from the internet blog Fabric Therapy and was mostly hand sewing. I did some modification to do a bit more of it by machine sewing.
Pattern: http://fabrictherapy.blogspot.com/2015/02/a-tutorial-sweetest-little-thread.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+blogspot/MJYPq+%28FABRIC+THERAPY%29

 



 My Machine Sewing changes:
  I made the bottom by sandwiching the circle and sewing on the machine

Cut two circles from medium weight cardboard (mine were some old postcards I had laying around) glued batting on each of them them glued them together

Put glued bottoms on fabric

Sandwiched

Used zipper foot to sew around bottom

Nice and easy

Pinked round  Bottom finished

  Followed pattern and used Pringles "can" for the inner ring.  After sewing the side I then folded up in half and inserted the ring.

Folded in half, ring ready to insert

Inserted ring

Then sewed the top together on the machine and hand stitched ring in place. (I did sew one of the rings on the machine, but was just too fiddly making my hand sewing oh so much quicker. )

Top matched at seam and clamped

Ready to sew together

(sorry lite is wonky) Sewing top

Top sewed all ready to slip in bottom and finish

Finished off by hand sewing the bottom in.

Ready to sew in the bottom

Now have a few that will make great gifts for crafty friends and others.

Still thinking of other things one can catch in this handy fold down tread catcher.
Behold it can catch M&Ms.
All ideas welcomed!

Bunny Snack Table Runner

It is Spring and with the turn of the season also comes for our family the Easter season.  It is always a time of sadness for what our world caused for the one we call Lord to endure but greatest joy as to what our God gave us in the resurrection of our Lord.  No matter a person's belief there is still the beauty of Spring with the budding of a fresh new world after a sleepy Fall and Winter.  The Easter Bunny also has a big job of getting the eggs delivered and candy and gifts.  Bunnies can get hungry what with all the hopping so we leave snacks to keep the bunny going.  Jelly beans, cookies, carrot cake, chocolate...well most anything sugary yummy and we want to make sure the bunny can see quickly where to hop and snack.  To ensure the bunny sees it I made a giant carrot from the pattern All People Quilt  (After seeing how cute I made 4 more for my kid's families and my BFF)  A big plus with this project is I got to use a lot of orange fabric scraps and using scraps is always a good thing. 

Flip & Sew Carrot Table Runner

http://www.allpeoplequilt.com/quilt-patterns/table-runners/flip-sew-carrot-table-runner

Stash for orange fabric

Strips all cut ready to sew

All done - one of five I made

back looking good for this quilt as you go pattern

one already delivered, three to be mailed and one stays with me...the Bunny needs a place for snacks here too.

Medallion Center for Fort Worth MQG...behold the rainbow

The Fort Worth Modern Quilt Guild has a medallion quilt "round robin" going. It is not a round robin where others add borders but every month we add a border, to our own center to get our name in for a drawing each time and there will be a grand prize at the end.  It is nice as there is no pressure to have to do a certain amount of borders or a certain style/pattern but the idea and an example to follow or embrace is on the Seattle Modern Quilt Guild site as they did this last year. I love the rainbow/color wheel quilts with a bit of color blocking and began mine with this in mind.

“This quilt was made using an Autumn Street pattern.” link to the shop:  www.thingsforboys.com/shop

the center block is 18" finished

Now working on the next round...

Being Square is Quilting Fun

A  baby is the very best reason to make a quilt.  Boy babies are a bit more challenging as I can't just use pink, girly it up and be done.  Boy quilts take a bit more thought at least for me, as girly girl is easy being a girl and all.  So enter the book Dare to Be Square Quilting by Boo Davis. Book link The grandparents are our friends and they have always had doxies, so their daughter I know loves dogs and grew up with doxies so this is what I chose....tons of fun!

Like the tree back

tagged back

signed back

Enjoyed showing it at the Fort Worth Modern Quilt Guild meeting where chuckles were lifted.  #FWMQG  

Can you say nitenite...pillowcases

Since last post I completed a baby quilt but no pics yet...I have done a medallion block for the Fort Worth Modern Quilt Guild but no pic yet.  I have completed two quilt tops for Lutheran World Relief but no pic yet.  I see a pattern here...no pic yet.  I do have a pic to the 12 pillow cases I have cut out ready to sew for the Fort Worth Modern Quilt Guild...a challenge was given to complete 100 this year for the guild's charity project

I am ready to sew.  Off I go.