Blocks from last week

Here are the blocks I did last week. F6, Deanies Daisies was ppd and appliqued and has 29 pieces (sorry for the blurry photo). F7, Star Struck was rotary cut and pieced with 21 pieces.

After doing these, I worked for several hours on the progressive I have to work on for my quilt group. It was fun, but I can't really show you since the person whose project I'm working on might just read this post! So, I thought what I would do is photo each of the projects I work on month by month and after our reveal next year, I can give you an idea of what we do! Sounds like fun to me!

I've also started a mini quilt to use as a springtime table topper from my left over scraps from Dear Jane. It's going to be cute! I should have enough done to show you next weekend. The other thing I need to get to is quilting a quilt for April.

I need to go check on my family. My DH had fairly strong allergic reaction to a piece of smoked fish he ate yesterday. He broke out in hives and one of his eyes swelled nearly shut. It was a bit scary because he was wheezing and you could tell his throat had some swelling too. But in the end all was well. Also, for some reason my dog stopped eating on Saturday. Her energy seems fine, but she sure isn't acting normally when it comes to the kitchen.

Have a good week and try to get some stitching done! I'm off to do a bit right now!

~Melanie

My First Corner Kite Done!

I took on my first Dear Jane Kite this weekend. It was way more fun than I thought it would be! What's weird about these DJ blocks and triangles is that I often don't see the little errors until I take the photo and put it here! I'm not telling you what my errors are, but I see them. And I'm hoping you DON'T see them!

I'm working on all kinds of projects this weekend. I'll share some of them with you later this week. Hope you are getting some sewing time yourself this weekend!

Weekend DJ Blocks

We took a road trip to my sister's this weekend. It was my brother-in-law's 60th birthday party. It was a surprise, so that was fun!

I prepped a block to applique on the road. It was F9, Autumn Aster and has 13 pieces. To me it looks like a big hairy bug with giant antennas. Is that weird?

Then on Sunday I did the last triangle in the top row, T13 called Eiffel Tower. It was paper pieced and appliqued and has 16 pieces. The last things to do on the top are the corner kites and I'll tackle my first one this week! Really looking forward to THAT. No really, I am!

Finally, the 2nd block of the week was Kaleidoscope which was paper pieced and has 25 pieces. Isn't it weird how sometimes the blocks with more pieces can sometimes look so simple??

Okay, I give up...I've been trying to get these photos in the right order and they won't play fair. But then, I'm sure you know which one of these blocks is the the big hairy bug and which is the Kaleidoscope, right? Hopefully, I'll eventually get the hang of this stuff!

Keep on stitching!

Melanie

Last Weekend's Finished Blocks

I re-made 2 blocks last week, the first was Cathedral Window (I think it's D5, 25 pieces, reg and ppd). I'm not too sure just what my problem was with this block since it went together fairly nicely when I did it for the third time! The next one is woven meadow and I think it's G10(39 pieces, rotary cut and pieced). I didn't use a 1/4 inch foot when I made it the first time, so it came out the wrong size...go figure! So now it's done too! Those were the only ones I couldn't live with, so it's good to have them redone! Then I made for my new finishes this week were E11, which I showed a couple of posts ago and the triangle was T11 (26 pieces, regular and ppd). For some reason, this triangle totally kicked my butt. It took me at least 3 hours to get done. And now that I see this picture, it looks like it's a bit wonky, so will have to fix that too! So there you go! Still need to get more hand work prepped for the road trip this weekend.... off to do that!

First Finish for March

I actually had this done about a week ago and forgot to post it. This is my finish for One Project a Month, but I do hope to add another finish to this one. Or maybe I just better use the time to get something closer to finishing. I think I still have one quilt layered and another 2 or 3 that are just in need of borders. It is so invigorating to get something done! And you know that feeling you get when you finish something? It's that feeling that says, "You finish stuff! You should go out and buy another project to work on, 'cause you finish stuff!" Well, so far I've been able to completely resist that temptation and that makes me really happy. There are easily a dozen quilts in my sewing room waiting to be finished and by golly, I'm going to finish them!

This quilt was a project that my quilt group helped me with. Each month, one of us passes out the ingredients and directions to make a block to each member. The next month that person hosts the group and we all arrive with a finished block for her. So this was my "pass out". When I laid them all out I found about 5 blocks that had mistakes in them so I picked them out and re-sewed, and then sewed them all together. Just as I was about to layer the quilt, I noticed I put the same blocks together incorrectly! aaaarrgh! Sew pick, pick, pick, out they came again. Mind you, months elapse in between each of these events. Finally it's together and quilted. And now I see one block still incorrect and another set in the quilt wrong! Oh, well! It's hanging in my bathroom and I can totally live with it!

Hope you finish something today too~

Melanie

Happy Weekend!

We have had such a lovely weekend so far! Yesterday we slept in....YAY! Then we had a leisurely morning over coffee and the paper and eventually ventured out for a nice walk. The weather was super nice yesterday morning. It was a walk down to the embarcadero and through downtown and back up the hill to our house, about an hour. I think it made Kali very happy and I certainly needed the exercise. Then we came home and worked in the yard for about 2 hours. Pete needed a bit of a nap after all that activity so that gave me some sewing time.

I feel great about my DJ activity this week. I finished a block and then re-did 2 others that weren't going into the quilt the way they turned out the first or second times so I did them again and now I'm finally happy enough with them that I can finally move on. The new finish was E-11, Wagon Wheel and had 14 pieces and was made with applique and reverse applique. Here's a picture of it in process and then done. I'm glad to have this one done too! The first 5 rows are now complete and there are another 20 or so blocks outside these rows done as well. My last count had 92 blocks and 16 triangles done. I figure with 2 blocks per week, I should get to my goal of 150 done by November 1.

Yesterday, I prepped all the pieces for Anne Sutton's BOM, A Tisket, A Tasket for January. I started late on this one, so I'm still playing catch up. Next weekend we have a road trip, so I need to make sure I have plenty of projects ready to go!

That's it for now. I'll show you those re-do blocks tomorrow. For now I have to walk a dog, Scotchgaurd a chair, clean the house, make a triangle and stain new inset for my new machine! Whew! Lot's to do!

Until then!
Melanie

Progressive

I've belonged to a wonderful friendship quilting group for about 6 years now. We max at 12 members and meet in each other's homes once a month. It's really a great group of talented Christian women. Typically we work on a progressive project that gets passed along each month until it's done. This year we decided to unfinished projects again. Basically the idea is we each bring a project that has been abandoned and give the group permission to do *whatever* they want, so you have to be okay just letting it go! I couldn't find anything that I didn't want to finish myself so I started this project just for this purpose! It is my first star of this type and it was certainly not easy. The grain of the fabric can really be tricky! At any rate, I'm so excited to see what the girls do with it. I'm certain it will be fabulous!

Also, I wanted to show you the easy DJ block and triangle I did this weekend. Because I was so busy with this other project I picked easy ones. So here is F2, Snowball, machine pieced with 17 pieces and L4, also with 17 pieces, foundation and machine pieced.


Tomorrow, I'll try to post my first project finished for March.

Until then!

Great Weekend with Lizzie

This was a great weekend for a few reasons, not the least of which I got to take care of my good friend Rana's dog, Lizzie. She is adorable. I don't know for sure, but I think she is a Corgy and has the most pleasant personality! She also loves me more than my very own dog does!! Go figure!

This picture of her peaking through the dog door is so precious. She can't get through it for 2 reasons: too fat, too short. What a burden! But I love her so! She does amazingly well on a walk. Her tongue gets long quickly, but she never gives up on keeping up with us!

Rana, I'll take care of Lizzie any ole time!

One other reason this was a good weekend was that I got plenty of sleep despite the time change! And last, but certainly not least, I picked up my new Bernina 430 on Friday afternoon. I'll show you on Tuesday what I did with her this weekend! I want to name her. Any ideas??

2 More Blocks!

I actually had 2 more blocks done that I didn't post yesterday. So here they are today. The DJ block is E13, Moth in a Web.



The other is the December Gail Pan BOM block. I just LOVE this Gail Pan project. I've not done a whole bunch of embroidery in the past, but the size of these blocks is just so perfect for someone more or less starting out and they are just so pleasant to the eye, don't ya think? If you aren't doing it, you should really consider it. They are really fast little projects. Check her out over at gailpandesigns.typepad.com!

Oh, and here's the scoop on the new machine. I bought it, but it had to be ordered. So I'm thinking I'll have it either at the end of this week or beginning of next week. Bet you can't guess which I would prefer!!

Jane Addiction and More

Wow, it's been a while since I've posted. Think there has been too much sewing going on to post! Good news is that there is lots to share! First, the blocks and triangle I finished last week... Sorry about the blurry picture on the red one. That's E8 and has 33 pieces if I'm counting correctly. It was rotary cut and pieced.

The blue one is E6, Michelle's Medley and has 28 pieces, was ppd, regular pieced and appliqued. Lastly, T11, Janes leaf, appliqued and pieced, 4 pieces.

This weekend, I also finished machine quilting a quilt (binding in the process) and finished the Bunny Hill block for Feb! More in the works so check in with me tomorrow!