Design Wall Monday

I received my swapped thimbles back last week! :-) I haven't quite decided how to border/sash them, so they are 'stewing' on the design wall for a bit. It seems lots of the swappers liked red! ;-) LOL I am still thinking about making 2 smaller wall hangings and putting them in my sewing room with the shelf that has my thimble collection underneath. Most of my accessories are black, white & red in my sewing room, but with so many red thimbles, maybe red wouldn't be the best choice for borders... ? They are all fused onto the backgrounds with the window cut out behind the thimble. Would you sew around them? I'm thinking it might spoil them~? And honestly, how often will they get washed? I think I'm talking myself into not stitching around them! :-)) If you like peeking into other sewing rooms/design walls, check out Judy L's list of design wall's. :-)

I'm off to complete my backings. My sewing machine has been humming lately!
Hope you are having a 'sewing' good time too! :-)

Until next time,
Happy Stitchin'!

Borders On!

I always kinda fizzle out when it comes time to add borders. It is so much quilt to struggle with! But I kept my nose to my sewing this week and finally got the borders on~yay! I think that deserves a little celebration, but not yet. No time to celebrate as I need to stick to it and get backings ready too. I am hoping to quilt these two in the near future! ;-))

The first is Judy L's 'Bears in the...' sew along she did a while back. I'm calling mine 'Bears in the Forest'. DS's one request was 'no flowers Mom!' I think he'll be happy. Some of the teeny HST's might contain a muted floral, but nothing that sings out 'I'm a flower! I'm a flower!'. LOL ;-) I'm hoping you can click it for a larger view, but sometimes that doesn't work and I sure don't know why! I am going to piece the backing for this one next week. I have bits and pieces of some of the fabrics left, so they should all coordinate nicely.

On the right we have the ocean wave blocks that I swapped with my friend. Y'all voted and helped me choose the border fabrics~ and I love how it turned out. :-) Thank you! This one is huge! :-o 80 wave blocks will do that. ;-) I think it measures 87 x 105, give or take a half inch, so you can see why I could only photograph half of it! It is going to be a full comforter on my bed when it is finished. I am now in the process of piecing its backing. I am hoping to quilt it with an all over leaf panto. Again, I'm hoping it will be clickable for the larger view... ;-)

Break time is over~ back to my sewing machine with me!
Have a great weekend and until next time~

Happy Stitchin'!! :-)

Mail!~

Yes, I get excited when the mail shows up~ especially if there are swap blocks coming home. ;-) Today I received the second part to the Summer Block Swap blocks. I'm not sure what I'll do with them yet, but it was an easy block and the variety will certainly make a cheery something! :-) Thanks to Margaret for the fun!

I am still working away at getting borders on quilt tops. Hopefully I will have some photo's for you in the next few days. In the meantime~ how do you like my pressing station? :-)) DD bought a futon for her apt and the height of the box is perfect! DH made the large pressing board for me a few years ago. It worked great in my loft sewing room, but since we've moved, I haven't found a good spot for it. When I saw the futon box in the hallway waiting to go to DD's, a lightbulb went off! LOL :-)) Hmm, I wonder if she'll let me keep her futon for a few weeks? ;-)

Hope y'all are having a good week~
Until next time~
Happy Stitchin'!! :-)

~More Giveaway's!~

Elaine at Faithful Quilter told me about these this morning. :-) They both would be wonderful to win! Good luck!~

Frummie is having a Two 2 Yard Giveaway~ who doesn't love fabric!? :-) She has a really cute blog too.

And Lurline is giving away strips of Regency Dandy repro's from Windham Fabrics!! :-o They are really neat! Go have a peek! :-))

I am busily sewing borders so (unless I get them on today), you won't be hearing anymore from me today! LOL :-))

Happy Stitchin'!

Design Wall Monday~

Today my 'design wall' is my cutting mat! LOL :-) The library got in a copy of Kaffe Fassett's 'Passionate Patchwork' and called me on Saturday. :-)) I had to play, didn't I? I tried a block in each size. A triangle ruler would've been helpful!~ I used my 6 inch and 24 inch rulers with the 45º angles. The blocks came out the right size, so I guess it worked! :-)) I can see that this is going to be a long term project~ it's a little bit fiddly, even though he says to not worry about matching the stripes.

I am going to change gears this week and work on getting borders on quilts! Wish me luck! ;-)

Until next time~
Happy stitchin'!

Do You Love Giveaways?

Faithful Quilter~ Elaine is having a great giveaway! The Civil War Giveaway! I didn't want to tell y'all about this one, but if I don't win, I hope you do! :-)

Also check out little Jonah's birthday cake~ yum! His mama Judi at Green Fairy Quilts is having a great giveaway too. ;-)

~Last Two~

Not because they are the last ones in the cupboard, but because I can't find photo's of the others! :-o I know I took photo's but we've had one too many computer crashes. :-/ I'll have to take new photo's one of these days... anyway~~

This was a really fun quilt! It was another Debbie Caffrey mystery in 'Traditional Quiltworks' magazine (back when they were still a magazine :-( ). This was one of the first FQ quilts for me. The pattern called for a bunch of FQ's and my Mom and I decided to purchase half yard pieces and swap half of each to make up our FQ's. At the time she lived in the midwest and I lived in Georgia, so it was a fun way to stay connected and work on a project 'together'. After I finished piecing it, I mailed it to her & she hand-quilted it for me. :-)) This is my 'summer' quilt, because it is so bright.

The final photo is my DD's quilt. When she was 7 or 8 years old she found a kit of already cut out 9-patch pieces at a yard sale. She was quite the 'bargainer' and talked the lady into her last dollar. :-) She was so proud of the deal she made! She had an old clucker of a sewing machine that we got for her to learn on and she spent many hours sewing together her blocks. They got packed up, we moved. We moved again, and she un-earthed them when she was in her teens. She was so critical of her earlier work and it took some smooth talking on my part to convince her to sew more blocks and make a quilt. We sashed all the blocks with my gingham stash. She did all the sewing. I had just purchased my embroidery machine, so she picked out the colors and I embroidered the butterflies on for her when she was at school.. it was so fun to see her dash up to my sewing room when she got home to see which butterfly I had done that day! :-) We stretched that out for quite a few days~ her picking the threads and where the butterfly would go, me sewing while she was in school. Then we sent it off to our favorite longarm quilter. She quilted swirls and feathers and butterflies! :-) I think it is still DD's favorite quilt and she takes excellent care of it. :-)

Ok, that's all for now~ until next time~~

Happy stitchin'! :-)