London Tea Towel Under the Needle

And the next project that i'm working on during my vacation is to quilt this longtime UFO.

This quilt started with a challenge to use a tea towel in a quilt.  I found one with various landmarks from around London and then filled in with other London themed blocks.  A couple of the focus prints came from an online reader of my block who lives in London.

The print fabrics were bought when I was in London back in 1997.   they are by Rose & Hubble and were bought at Mark's and Spencer dept store. Blocks have been pieced and machine appliqued.  Lots of buttons have also been used in the blocks.  There are several custom designed blocks in the quilt.

All of the blocks bring back memories of something (or someone) that I was fortunate enough to see during my trip there. I'm stitching in the ditch on this one.   Am thinking I may use a scrappy binding made from some of the fabric leftovers from the prints.

Gratitudes:

1. Lunch or other meetings with various friends this week.

2. For the beautiful weather here in the southwest while I've been out here.   Hope for the same clear weather when I head back home.

December F2F Blocks

Decembers blocks go to Esther.   And her colors were drawn from the flower pots in her garden shown in this picture.

The three blocks that I made include these:

Gratitudes:
1. A safe drive out to Phoenix for vacation with only one area of construction in Amarillo.

2. Being able to get together with friends in Albuquerque that I hadn't seen for more than 22 yrs for dinner.

URGENT NOTICE ---- Last Chance to Get My Patterns on Craftsy

In case you have not caught the news about the Craftsy debacle, as of December 28th my Crafty site will be taken down because the powers that be  at Craftsy decided that my little store was one of the ones they were going to get rid of.

They claim that any patterns you've purchased either for a price or for free will continue to be available  once the many sites are taken down, but I'm not sure that I would trust them.  I am making sure that everything is at least downloaded to your computer or printed off.

I am working on figuring out where I will be moving my patterns to, but have not finalized my decision on that.   I will post again when I do know that.

In the meantime thank you to those that have accessed my patterns for your patronage.

If you want to take a look to see if there are any you want, click here to to to my site.

Final 2018 Commission Completed

5 months ago I had been asked if I could finish a Christmas stocking for the owner of the small company that I work for.  Time went by and I never heard anything back until the finished canvas was finally brought in yesterday afternoon.  Had to be back to my customer this morning....so lots of 'fun' getting it done last night.  Did get paid more because of the rush job that was needed.

I used black velveteen for the back, gold upholstery cording around the edges, and lined it in a cream w/gold metallic snowflake print.   And not shown in the pics are two little white & gold metallic pompoms glued on for the two knit hats.

Gratitudes:
1. Antibiotics are helping get rid of the infection, and hopefully won't take too big of a hit on my platelets

2. Weather is predicted to be dry (albeit cold!) for my drive out to AZ for vacation the next two days.....YEAH!

Scrap Happy December - Batik Strings

I've started working through stuff here with a view to downsizing at least some of the things in my craft room and fabric room.   My scraps are one of the things that need to be downsized because they no longer fit into the two large totes that I've kept them in for years.  And especially bad is the fact that I still have scraps that need to be put in there!

So I pulled out the batik scraps and strings (2 - one gallon ziploc bags....) to sort through them and weed out...........  This is what I ended up with as strings.  Once the strings and little bits were out I sorted into color families and started making string blocks.















Oranges have now been used and i'm starting on the reds.....


Check out what the others have been doing at these links -

Kate, Gun, Titti, Heléne, Eva, Sue, Nanette, Lynn, Lynda, Birthe, Turid, Susan, Cathy, Debbierose, Tracy, Jill, Claire, Jan, Karen, Moira (me) , Sandra, Linda, Chris, Nancy, Alys, Kerry, Claire, Jean, Johanna,
Joanne, Jon, Hayley, Dawn, Gwen and Connie


Gratitudes

1. Vacation starts one wk from today.........woohoo......

2. For meds, including cough syrup, to hopefully totally rout this round of bronchitis.  =)

Free pattern for Christmas

For those that paper-piece I've added a free pattern for a Christmas block

Made with scraps these Santa's are dancing around the Christmas tree in the middle of the block.

For the pattern go to my Craftsy store here.

Enjoy!

Gratitudes:

1. For the coming short week at work, nothing like not taking vacation until the end of the year.

2. For friends near and far, may I be a blessing to them as they have been to me over the years.

Completed Commissoned Wedding Dress Pillows

Finished off the latest commission - Four 12" pillows to be made from the customers wedding dress.

After all the rework the pillows came out looking like this - 

 Most of the pleated satin was from the dress.   I pleated two sections to maintain continuity between the pillows.   First two have the lace from the sleeves, and the second two have the lace from the bodice.

Backs are done envelope style with un-pleated satin from the skirt.

Gratitudes:

1. Commission is done and ready for customer pickup tomorrow - yeah!

2. Only one more commission to be done before vacation - a mixed blessing.

Christmas Postcards, Part 2

I've completed four more Christmas themed postcards.   These were made with more Christmas picks from Joann's.............these of plastic Christmas candy that I thought were fun.

I cut the wire of the picks short leaving about 3-4" total - enough to hide the bottom in the "vase".

Vases were made from large pre-fused scraps of fabric from that scrap bag.  The green fabric was bought because I didn't have anything the candy would show up against.

Gratitudes:

1. Vacation is almost here!

2. Getting to see long-time friends on vacation.

December Block of the Month - Jerry the Marine

The December block of the month features Jerry the Marine. 

Jerry was named for a friend who is the husband of a long-time another friend of mine.

You can find the pattern for Jerry at here on my Craftsy site.   It will be free for the month of Decembe.


Gratitudes:

1. For the service that many family and friends have given in the military.

2. For a job that pays the bills.

Weekend wrap-up

Thanks to errands that took most of my vacation day on Friday I didn't get as much done this weekend as I'd hoped to.   But I did get a wee bit done.

All lace is now off of the wedding dress and I've started separating the rest of the dress so that I can cut the sections needed for the pillows.  This part will be part jigsaw puzzle as I figure out how to cut around stains and dirty spots while still making use of the pleated sections that formed the bodice and torso areas.

Four more Christmas postcards were completed.  The machine ended up arguing with me as I tried to stitch them down with a zigzag stitch.....finally got it to behave with a straight stitch.  One of them has already been sent off in a Christmas package.

More of the plaid was used for the backing of the postcards.

And the final bit of stitching was this test block of a new paper-pieced pattern.  Plan is to get it written up and posted on Craftsy for a free download today or tomorrow.


















And this is what my front yard currently looks like....and why my
next "toy" aka tool, needs to be a combo leaf vacuum/mulcher/blower.    I love how the sweet gum tree looks in full leaf......but not so fond of having to clean up all the leaves in winter.  lol


Gratitudes:

1. Totally current on paychecks as of Friday.  Still to be seen how December goes.

2. Plans are starting to come together with my airbnb booking made for AZ.

November F2F wrap-up

My November blocks for Robin went in the mail on Friday.

Her colors were were these -

Cobalt blue, the pink of the flower, and the orange of the clementine tangerine, with a wee bit of white if needed.  The pink of the flower was the one hard to find in my stash this month.



















And the blocks that I made for Robin.  I ended up sending the top two, and the bottom right one.   All blocks are pp'd from my designs except the top left.

Bottom left block ended up staying here because I realized after finishing the block that I had two pieces of the WOW background fabric wrong side up.   So it will go off to the orphan block tote.

These next two photos show the color inspirations for the blocks for December.  I bought fabrics for my blocks on Saturday at my favorite quilt store all from the FQ's they had on sale for $2 each (normally $3.50!).   And of course a goodly number of scrap bags had to follow me home as well......two of them filled with enough light yellow batik scraps to do the background of a full quilt.   Now to find something to go iwth them....maybe a floral.


Gratitudes:
1. Platelets were up a wee bit, so I don't have to go on meds at the present.  Hoping that trend continues.

2. Was able to get my AirBnb booking completed.    Will even have room to sew at where I've booked in my down time....woohoo....

Post Card Short Cuts

I love making quilted post cards, but sometimes just want to do something quick.

 In the Black Friday sale this year, Joann's had their Christmas picks on sale for 70% off.   I'd gone to look at them to see if I could find some smaller poinsettia blooms.   I didn't find that, but did find these cute felt ones.  There was also a Mrs Santa but I didn't like that as well as these.

First step to using them was to cut off the wire part of the pick.














Next step was to iron the fabrics for the front and back onto the fusible peltex that I use for the inside of my post cards.

I use a stripe on the back so that I have lines to follow when I write!

Then followed that up by finishing the edges of the post card.

 Finally from the front side I held the Santa down and then stitched around him where my sewimg machine foot would fit.  Didn't get totally around the edges, but enough to hold him to the post card.

This dapper gentleman went to a friend on one of my quilt lists.

So if you want to make post cards, don't be afraid to use something that may not be traditional for applique.



Gratitudes:
1. Tomorrow is a vacation day and payday!.

2. Foot is slowly getting better with wearing the boot at work, at home is another story tho........lol

Helping those who lost all in the Camp Fire in Paradise CA

I've been mulling over how to help a couple of families that are directly related to several people that I know, and will write more about that in a few days.

But in the meantime, here is one opportunity to help get funds to those who have lost everything in the fire.  This beautiful quilt is being raffled off by Lynn who blogs at Sew'n Wild Oaks Quilting Blog.  Paradise is her home town, and she is giving all proceeds from this raffle to those who will be rebuilding their homes and lives after this fire.  If interested in being a part of this then click on the link above and you'll go directly the page where she talks about the raffle.

Gratitudes:
1. For the generosity given to those who've lost all as they work to rebuild
2. For communities that work together in the face of disaster.

Stepping Out of the Comfort Zone

Last week a good friend sent me a link to a blog posting by Island Batik fabric that talks about the applications for their Island Batik Ambassador program and the application for the 2019 program.   If you're interested you can read about the program at this link.

After reading the post and all the info wanted for the application, I decided to step out of my comfort zone and submit an application. 

There were several reasons for this  -

-- I love a good challenge, and there aren't many of them that I turn down.
-- This seems to have the potential to build my pattern sales and design potential, along with possible publication potential
-- BATIKS.....what more needs to be said about my favorite fabrics that I have a bad habit of hoarding instead of using

One block was to be pieced and sent to Island Batik along with the application that was submitted electronically. 

This is the block that I designed and made.   Made from all batik fabrics from my stash. 

The three lighter blue shades were from scraps, the darkest blue from a FQ, and the background was the better part of 2 fat-eighth's.   No idea though what manufacturer since they are all from stash and I've had them a while.

Gratitudes:

1. For the day of friendship and fellowship with friends yesterday over Thanksgiving dinner.

2. For God's hand of protection with my platelets having taken a nose-dive.

Scrap Happy November

I've been playing in my scraps this month - mostly to straighten and contain them as they had multiplied drastically over the last several months.  More work tho needs to be done on that.

In all that work I did find time to use a few of them in this snack mat.   And in making it also finished off another UFO piece of cross-stitch as well.   21 different fabrics were used in this not counting the aida in the cross-stitch.

 Close-up of the pebble quilting.  Not perfect, but not bad for my first time doing it.

And the backing, also from the scrap stash.

To see what the other ladies have done this month click on the links below:

Kate, Gun, Titti, Heléne, Eva, Sue, Nanette, Lynn, Lynda, Birthe, Turid, Susan, Cathy, Debbierose, Tracy, Jill, Claire, Jan, Karen, Moira (me!), Sandra, Linda, Chris, Nancy, Alys, Kerry, Claire, Jean, Johanna, Joanne, Jon, Hayley, Dawn, Gwen and Connie

Gratitudes:

1. For the variety of fabrics that I have to work with in my stash

2. For a job to go to, even when not paid............

Mid-November Goals & To-do's

How is it possible time is moving so quickly these days?   It's been 2 weeks since I looked at my to-do list and 


Blog / General -
-- Art Quilt Blog Hop Post, Due November 2018 - still need to decide on which quilt I want to feature in this post  - Done!
-- Go to quilt Store and pick up Row-by-Row quilt - Done!
-- Military Teddy Bear #2 release post, pattern to Craftsy - Done!


Pattern Designing / Quilt Challenges:
-- Military Teddy Bear #2 - Released

-- Military Teddy Bear #3 - Block made

-- Military Teddy Bear #4 - Block made

-- Military Teddy Bear #5 - Block made

-- Military Teddy Bear Setting

      -- Pattern needs to be written, reviewed and released

-- MQG Michael Miller Challenge - due last week of November for submission to QuiltCon
      -- Piece backing - Prepped
      -- Decide on quilting - motif or quilt from the back based on backing fabric
      -- Quilt top on small machine
      -- Bind quilt
      -- Enter quilt show online

-- Stretching Art Quilt Challenge, theme= "20", due January 2019
-------- First design top has been completed
-------- Decide on design, Was getting closer, but have a second design drawn up now
-- Ready and ship Quilt for entry into Road to CA if juried in
-- MQG Mini Swap Quilt - Received partner's info and have sourced the desired fabrics
-- Mystery submission for either Fons & Porter or Make Modern - design complete, top in process


Quilting -
-- Applique saying (Bear Hugs) onto filler strip of Scrappy teddy bears
-- Make November F2F blocks (3) and mail - gotta find fabrics first!

-- Quilt and bind Scrappy Snail quilt, list for sale
-- Quilt and bind Scrappy Kitten quilt, list for sale
-- Quilt and bind Scrappy Puppy quilt, list for sale
-- Quilt and bind Hatbox quilt (for sale?)
-- Quilt and bind Teddy Bear quilt for Valerie
-- Giftie for Shoebox swap - due the middle of November
-- Quilt and bind whale and anchor baby quilt, list for sale
-- Make first set of curtain panels the F2F blocks will go onto

Commissions -
-- 4 12" pillows from customers wedding dress, due mid-December
-- Wolves Passport Wallet - Remade and delivered to customer
-- Passport wallets for sale - 2 in process

    
Ebay/Etsy Postings:
-- Completed passport holders (8) - Done!   All are listed on Ebay, now to keep up as I get more made
-- Completed passport holders (8) - Still need to list on Etsy
-- Completed scrappy quilts made for sale
-- Completed tablerunners and quilts
-- Quilt Magazines
-- Embroidery Floss
-- Finished Quilts
-- Vintage daisy and button, Fenton glass collectables (canoe, shoe, top hat, pitcher, cauldron, xxxx)


House:
-- clean up dead branches and trim trees/bushes in the back yard
-- figure out how to deal with the front door and how to pay for it.  Will need help with this one
-- Rearrange craft room for easier use - Done!
-- Rearrange fabric room for easier use


Gratitudes:
1. For it looking like there will be data coming in at work around the middle of Dec which means work for next year

2. For days when I don't have to drive in rain on the commute (not today....sigh)

Final 2018 F2F Blocks

The remaining blocks for this round of the swap came in yesterday.

Blocks from Kate -

I totally love this scrappy dresdan plate.   And it makes me want to do this with some of my scraps!

Blocks from Nanette

Blocks from Robin

Gratitudes:

1. No trouble on my commute to work this morning, even with the low temps and icy patches many places

2. For my home

F2F Blocks

These are the second round of wonderful blocks that I've received from this years swap.  And all are beautiful.

From - Claire

From - Esther

From - Sue

Gratitudes:

1. For friends around the world to swap blocks with.

2. For no snow or ice with the cold weather that N. TX is having right now