A little of this and that

Before sharing what's been going on in Podunk I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas!  I know many of you have been stitching up those last minutes gifts.  Because I seem to always get behind on the Christmas sewing gifts I decided not to make any stitchy gifts.  But our Christmas gifts are homemade.  It took me a whole after noon to decorate enough of these for 9 different people.  Each box will be filled with about 6 different canned goods, deer jerky and some fancy bought crackers and bread.

Me and my kids and my brothers kids are all making ugly Christmas sweaters to wear at mommas tomorrow.  Mom has no idea!  She's a bit of a fuddy duddy.  You know the kind, doesn't like change, thinks that things need to be just a certain way, and laughs very little.  So we try every year to make her laugh, well all year long actually.  Anyway...I raided Ross's closet for old sweaters that he never wears, cut them down the middle for easy on and off.

One for me.....

....and one for him, he wants me to add buttons, big buttons.  No time for buttons!

Not everything in the last week has been about Christmas.  I started a crochet project.  It's a variation of a granny square, the red is sorta 3D, it stands up off the background.  See the difference a needle makes?  I also had to change the pattern a bit, imagine that, me not sticking to the pattern!  See how the small block curves on the sides?  After tugging and trying to pull it into shape I added one extra chain to the corners giving the larger block a straighter appearance and it can be blocked a lot easier.

This is made from the Scraps of the Confetti quilt.  It went together fast because most of the work was already done.   Still needs another border?  Maybe just keep going and make a table cloth!  In order to put this on the table I had to sand out the water spots on the cherry table....not a fun project.  Up until now we have just kept a table cloth on it to hide about 3, the size of your hand, bright white water spots. 

Well that's it.  No more to share.  Now let the baking begin! 

~Lea Anne~

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Six dollar Christmas Tree

Yes it's sad, but it works.   Now let me tell you there's a story behind this sad Charlie Brown tree.  So here goes...

Since the birth of my first child I've always heavily decorated my home.  After my divorce 10 yrs ago, the holiday mojo left.  My kids would drag out the boxes of holidays past and make me get in the spirit.  After about 3 years of that, the mojo returned.  And then I fell in love with my wonderful Ross.  We decided to take the plunge and merge.  His place was bigger and nicer so I downsized.  Giving almost everything I owned to my children, and that included all 3 Christmas trees, 3ft, 6ft, and 7 1/2 ft.  It only took us filling up both of our trucks to get all my stuff here. 

Well we don't have a lot of visitors out here in Podunk, and my mom has always had the family Christmas.  So no need to worry about decorations for just me and Ross.  That is unless you have a mom that is stubborn and refuses to have Christmas dinner on any day but Christmas Eve.  You see my daughter lives out of state, she doesn't always get to come home for the holidays.  Well two years ago she came home, on the 21st of December, and since mom is a mules azz sometimes I had to pull together a party on short notice.  Luckily a guy I worked with heard  me complaining and came to my rescue with this tree that already had the lights on it.  (He had lost his Christmas mojo....divorce ya know how it does that).  

So I went to the dollar store and bought a roll of ribbon and 12 red balls, added the lace ornaments leftover from my little boutique.  And Charlie Brown eat your heart out!  The first year I just wrapped some fabric around the bottom for a skirt.  Last year I made a skirt that was way to big.  So this year  I whipped this one up in an hour....it's just right!

Yeah I know it looks silly sitting atop the old record player but it works.  Its all about spirit and not the looks or the cost.  We love our little $6 tree.

I've edited this post to link up with Quilting Lines, she's having a christmas skirt roundup, what fun!  Hop on over and see all the lovely christmas skirts!

~Lea Anne~

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Hooray its a flimsy!

What a joy this quilt has been to put together.  I love the colors in the blocks.  The picture makes the background look whiter, it's more creamy with tan print. That border isn't doing much for me now that it's on there.  Guess what?  Its staying.  The rich colors will look fine in the living room where there's a lot of darker wood furniture.   

 A lot of my quilts this year have had cherry themes, so why stop now.  I'm sticking with the name Chocolate Covered Cherries for this one.  

 Hopefully I can get it quilted sometime next year.  For now it will be put in the drawer with the others waiting in line.

 I played around with color placement and found that radiating the colors really wasn't a good idea.  Notice the second row, third block in the picture below.  It really stands out at a distance.  

 Now I can put most of my quilty energy back to what's on the frame. The plan is to have little or now markings while quilting this one.  It's been quite the challenge.  Due to the borders giving me issues, I'll need to turn the quilt in order to do the side borders.  Not fun, but better than picking stitches that don't work.  And in the long run it will be quicker than marking or picking.  

Will it be done by Christmas?  One can only hope.  There's shopping and cooking yet to do for the big day so quilting will take a back seat.  

Need more quilty inspiration?  Hop on over to Judys for Design Wall Monday and see what others are stitching up for the holidays.

~Lea Anne~

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Chocolate covered cherries

As I stood looking at my design wall last night a sudden craving for Chocolate covered Cherries came over me.  To be honest I don't even like cherries( it's a texture thing, I can't stand the way they feel in my mouth, crazy, yes).  The Cherry is spit out leaving the chocolate and delicious creamy center to do its little magical dance on my taste buds.  Brach's brand was the best, that center would just run out like syrup!  YUM!  But they are hard to find these days.  Anyway enough of the daydreaming about food.  Do you see why this wall reminds me of chocolate covered cherries?

It took me about 30 minutes to figure out this block after seeing a picture.  Then last night while doing my normal 2 a.m. insomnia web surf I found this tutorial in Spanish.  I hit the translate and well I'll be darned!  And here I wasted all that quilty brain power.  

They go together quickly.  (4) 10 inch squares make 2 blocks, a positive block and a negative block .  The gingham is the background fabric.  The strip sets below are for one block.

 Layering all the strips sets together and calling on June Taylor to help me with accuracy. Rarely do I  use the Shape Cut, but after I do I think why don't I use this more often? It such a handy tool!

 ZIP, ZIP ,ZIP, ZIP and 5 perfect sets, 1 has been set aside for a possible border.

 Arranged for sewing together.  Cherry in the middle and four little gingham corner pieces.

Making four at a time, chain piecing, takes about 45 and that includes the final pressing of the blocks. These blocks can wait till after I run to town for eggs, coffee creamer, and Chocolate covered cherries! 

~Lea Anne~

Linking up with Freshly Pieced Modern for WIP Wednesday.

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Lots to share DWM

I'm taking momma to the doctor tomorrow, so lets have design wall progress  today.  

After a day and a half of hand stitching the small red circles in place.  This quilt came together quickly.  I took so many pictures!  Luckily for you I picked out just a few.

 Some of the perfect circles didn't come out quite as perfect as I would have liked.  They were perfect before stitching.  What I found is that needles make all the difference.   My first needle of choice was one of those quick threading kind.  Bad choice, the larger eye pulled my circles out of whack.  After changing to applique sharps needle things looked better.  

 If you not familiar with the how to make a perfect circle you can find a tute here.  

 LOVE LOVE LOVE the border fabric.  It took about a month to find just the right color indigo blue to match the blue of the oak and reel block.  I know it looks darker but really its not.  The small print on the blocks makes it appear to be a different shade of blue.    Since the border fabric is such a large print I had to do some fussy cutting on the length of the fabric instead of cutting on the width.  Lots of scraps were made by doing this but the outcome is worth it.  

 I wanted to share this pattern with you but the oak and reel has a copyright.  After searching for hours to find where the pattern, I finally found it in Inspired by Traditions by Kay Mackenzie.  Mines just spruced up a bit with the circles.  The alternating block is just a basic Irish chain block that can be found on my tutorials tab.  

Inspiration has struck and I'm stuck in the darker colors.  Here's what I've made today from a Primitive Gatherings layer cake and some yardage.  Those little squares finish at 1.5.   The red center fabric is from the oak and reel quilt, and don't tell anyone..... but that gingham.....its a baby sheet I scored at the Goodwill for $1.  

 Hopefully I'll have time to shop for the sashing fabric after momma's doctor appointment.

 You know I can't go very long with out playing with the brights.  I made this itty bitty cutie(5.5").  It's a freebie tutorial from Red Pepper Quilts that you can find here.  If you have EQ7 it's one of the basic patterns.   This will become my leaders and enders project.  Some of you may recognize it from Jenny Doans Youtube Tutorial from last week.  Jenny requires you buy her papers and a template to make the quilt.  Red Pepper lets you print it out for free!  I set my printer up for fast printing which makes it use less ink.  Either way it's going to cost something.  

Want more quilty inspirations?  Its just a click away!  Judy at Patchwork Times hosts a link up every Monday morning.  Anyone can enter their blog.  So hop on over, link up, and check out others Design walls. 

~Lea Anne~

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Still in the Dark

Since I've made a color change on the frame might as well pull out a UFO in darker colors.  This was started umm...a couple of years ago maybe.  Hand appliqued, not sure where I found the oak and reel block pattern.

Kinda plain and boring huh?

Needs more color, so I had the brilliant idea to just add some simple circles.  By using Kay Buckley's Perfect circle templates they're much easier and the finished circle is Perfect!  Cutting a strip of fabric the width of the unfinished circle, then sub cutting, and using the circle as a guide for cutting.  108 unfinished circles cut in less than 30 minutes.  4 layers can be cut at once, speeding up the process tremendously.  My finished size circle is the ones at the top left corner of this picture, they are almost out of view.  

 TADA!  3 down 105 more to go.  I'll spend the afternoon doing the running stitch around each circle while doing laundry.  After they are stitched its back to the quilting frame. 

 Tomorrow I can start the starching and ironing of each little circle and glue them in place.  Yes glue!  Its Roxanne's basting glue, or if you're cheap like me Elmer's Washable school glue refills the fine tipped bottle.   If you interested in a tutorial on how to make these perfect circles go here and here.   

The added 3(needs 9 more) finished to the block, I suppose they could be the acorns.  Gives the block a much happier look, don't you think?

 Using EQ7, I scanned in my border and inset fabrics, used EQ's version of the Oak and Reel and here's the plan.  Yep another quilt with the simple Irish chain block.   It goes together quickly and can be done by strip piecing and sub cutting.  All 16 blocks could easily be made in a short afternoon sewing spree.

I'm linking up with Connie today for Linky Tuesday.  Hop on over check out what others quilters are stitching up, and add your own link.  Its a great way to meet new quilty friends and share ideas.  There's always new and free tutorials being link up.  

~Lea Anne~

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Color change

Good Monday morning!  Hope everyone enjoyed the holiday.  

After 3 days of not stepping foot in the studio it was full steam ahead yesterday.  My MIL's home was decorated for the holiday and it inspired the darker side of my quilty brain.  My regular followers know that I change style and colors about as often as I change my pants.  Instead of digging through the scraps and designing I went to the flimsy drawer.  This was designed over a year ago for the Master bedroom.  King size!  Lonestar quilts are my go-to pattern, its a love affair.  

 There was no plan for the quilting.  I just grabbed the arc ruler and used my blocks and seams as a guide.  The only markings made so far is one centering dot on the yellow square, and it was eyeballed.  Makes the quilting go so much faster if there's no marking.

Do you have a go-to pattern, one that you really like?  Most quilters go-to pattern is super simple, but when thinking of go-to, I think it's one that everyone swoons over.  And by changing the colors it can take on a totally different look.   They make great gifts, because everyone recognizes them.  Although they look hard, once you've made a Lonestar by using the strip method or Quilt Smart, you'll wonder why you never made one before.  

Here's another one I made for my dad, called Four Directions.  The border design is fusible applique.  

 And this one was beautiful until I tried to get the bleeding colors to stop.  Lesson learned on pre-washing all fabrics.  

Link up with Judy and strut your stuff on Design wall Monday.

~Lea Anne~

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Give Away Winner!

Thanks to everyone who commented and all the new followers! The lucky quilter is Margaret who said

"I am thankful that I get to spend another holiday season with my husband. Thanks for the giveaway."

Congrats Margaret!  I've sent you an email. 

Hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday weekend!

~Lea Anne~

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Sew much to do and sew little time

Good Monday morning!  Did everyone spend the weekend preparing for thanksgiving?  Not me, I canned Horseradish.  I now have the clearest sinuses of my life.  Shew that stuff is powerful.  

How about another little peek at those spools!

All the sections are finally together.  Don't you just love the  Scrumptious line of fabric?  Currently I'm working on designing a little lot of embroidery for the larger gray areas in the quilt.   Since designing embroidery is a first for me, it's taking a tad bit longer than expected.  My biggest problem is decided between tons of color or whitework embroidery.  

The quilt behind the spools is ready to be loaded and quilted as soon as I can piece a backing.  It's just so colorful and fun it  had to work it into the pictures.

Okay I guess you can see the whole plan.  They now look like white spools instead of gray ones.  Our holiday plans have changed, so hopefully by next Friday the instructions will be ready to post.    We were originally  going to have a 2 day holiday now its a 4 days of family and food.  What could be better!? 

You can find more design walls over at Judy's.

~Lea Anne~

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